Nagging pain between ankle and heel.

[OneBiteAtATime]

I don't know much about the construction of my foot... so if this is covered elsewhere, I'm sorry....

I'm 7 weeks into my barefoot transition. I have gone zero drop shoes for casual and work shoes and am running exclusively barefooted.

Either during a run, just after, or 24 (+/-) hours after, I have pain between my ankle and heel on the left foot exclusively. See pic, I have an arrow pointing at the source.

Sometimes it even swells up a bit there. Zero pain whatsoever on right foot.

Trying to figure out if this is just part of the transition or if it is an injury - whether I need to rest or just do what I can or switch to some shoes with a minimal drop or......?

Thanks in advance for any help, I'm SO very happy to be running without knee and shin pain, don't want to lose the opportunity to something minor....

 

[paulbeales]

I've had the same. It goes away in time. I put it down to TMTS (too much too soon)

 

[NickW]

I get a pain right there. What works for me is rolling my calves and shins on a softball. I think it's trigger points from tight muscles.

 

[Neil_D]

It could just be some tightness around the ankle joint. Check out the doc's section there were some good videos of doing some trigger point release around the ankle that might be useful.
Getting more strength in the lower leg will help stabilise your landing in case you are twisting when your foot touches the ground.

Neil

 

[Backfixer]

From the description, there are a couple of possibilities including too much too soon, since barefoot loads the calves quite a bit more than shod, however, if there have been problems with the soft tissues surrounding the ankle, restricting ankle movement, you may benefit from a chiropractor looking at it and perhaps performing some extremity manipulation. Without actually feeling how this functions mechanically, I cannot be more specific. If you successfully train through this (slow down the mileage buildup), it may just be an adjustment to running barefoot. It may be helpful if you had a video of you running on a treadmill, since this would allow us much more information as to why this may be hurting. Often with gait related issues, that include core problems, they will be seen on a video. An easy test for core is to stand on one leg and slowly bend at the knee. If you fall over, there are symmetry and glut issues and you are probably going to have to work on that first before you continue. Again, a good sports chiropractor can be quite helpful in that regard.

Going back to shoes may help however, a gait related issues that involves the core will effect you shod or not.

 

[OneBiteAtATime]

Thanks again Dr. Charschan!

I can stand on one foot, slowly bending my knee without falling down.

I'll see if I can get a video done on a treadmill, but....

Maybe I'd be best off visiting a chiropractor.

I'll keep it simple for a fee days and see what happens. After rolling the crap out of my shins and calves yesterday immediately after running; it feels better than it has; I may be getting through this thing. Time will tell.