NickW
Guest
So, as most of you that know me know, I have been dealing with PF for almost a year now. I have asked many of you all for advice as well as the docs on here. Nothing I did seemed to really help much other than temporarily, like say an hour or two. I tried rolling my legs out on a foam and pvc roller, stretching, eccentric heel drops, trying to find trigger points (I am terrible at this), and massaging. I ended up in shoes a few months back because that was the only way I could continue running. I even put orthotics in them. I ended up taking two weeks completely off, came back and did a 10k trail race and ended up not able to walk for a couple days after that, then took another couple weeks off. I got to where I wanted to go and get a second opinion from a new doc and see if there was something else wrong or if there was anything else I could be doing.
Well, a couple weeks ago I made the decision to get back into barefoot barefoot skin to ground running against my wifes wishes (you married folks may not want to follow that advice). I decided to hell with speed and distance, I was just going to strictly work on form, both walking and running. I noticed pretty quickly that while my midfoot was hitting the ground first, my heel was striking the ground pretty dang hard immediately after the midfoot. I decided that couldn't be good so I began actively trying to lessen the impact of my heel on the ground and rotated the foot from mostly flat to slightly angled to the ground more so I landed just slightly more forefoot and then just letting the heels ever so slightly kiss the ground. Not even close to the point that I was putting my full body weight down on it, but just a very light kiss.
It was amazing, this mysterious spring that Jason and Dr Mark talk about all of a sudden started springing my knees up and my legs forward. I've had times in the past when I would feel springier than normal but I was never able to figure out what I was doing different. Apparently, when you let your heels come down hard, even with a forefoot/midfoot landing, you lose a lot of that elastic energy in the ground. Not only was I feeling more springy, but I was hurting less afterwards, my PF was not bothering me so much. After two weeks I am happy to report that my PF is mostly gone and only seems to come back when I push too hard during a run and I fatigue and let my heels start banging the ground again. Our new Dr Emily confirmed for me that banging the heels on the ground can cause stress to the plantar fascia potentially causing PF. I hope that this can help some of you other folks out there, because I personally was at the point of thinking that maybe I was just too damaged and couldn't run anymore and I would hate to see any of you feeling like that. Thanks again for all of your (collectively) advice and help along the way!
Well, a couple weeks ago I made the decision to get back into barefoot barefoot skin to ground running against my wifes wishes (you married folks may not want to follow that advice). I decided to hell with speed and distance, I was just going to strictly work on form, both walking and running. I noticed pretty quickly that while my midfoot was hitting the ground first, my heel was striking the ground pretty dang hard immediately after the midfoot. I decided that couldn't be good so I began actively trying to lessen the impact of my heel on the ground and rotated the foot from mostly flat to slightly angled to the ground more so I landed just slightly more forefoot and then just letting the heels ever so slightly kiss the ground. Not even close to the point that I was putting my full body weight down on it, but just a very light kiss.
It was amazing, this mysterious spring that Jason and Dr Mark talk about all of a sudden started springing my knees up and my legs forward. I've had times in the past when I would feel springier than normal but I was never able to figure out what I was doing different. Apparently, when you let your heels come down hard, even with a forefoot/midfoot landing, you lose a lot of that elastic energy in the ground. Not only was I feeling more springy, but I was hurting less afterwards, my PF was not bothering me so much. After two weeks I am happy to report that my PF is mostly gone and only seems to come back when I push too hard during a run and I fatigue and let my heels start banging the ground again. Our new Dr Emily confirmed for me that banging the heels on the ground can cause stress to the plantar fascia potentially causing PF. I hope that this can help some of you other folks out there, because I personally was at the point of thinking that maybe I was just too damaged and couldn't run anymore and I would hate to see any of you feeling like that. Thanks again for all of your (collectively) advice and help along the way!
