Plantar fasciitis is a frustrating and painful problem. If you’re training for a race or just cant live without your daily run, plantar fasciitis or any kind of heel pain can majorly interrupt your life. But can you run with plantar fasciitis? First, we’ll explain this problem. Then we’ll help you figure out if you should continue running. Finally, we’ll show you the most evidence based exercises to fix plantar fasciitis.
Where does plantar fasciitis hurt?
First, it’s worth mentioning that not all heel pain is plantar fasciitis. We have an article on the differences here. Technically, Plantar Fasciitis is the irritation (which sometimes includes tissue breakdown) of the plantar fascia (overview of condition)
The PF is a band of fiber-y tissue that runs along the bottom of the foot. It provides some of the structure of the foot and interacts with the foots muscles, tendons, and bones. Some experts call the condition “Plantar Fasciosis” because scans often show the PF breaking down. However, we prefer to call it “plantar pain.” This simple term is better because you can have pain without tissue breakdown and tissue breakdown doesn’t alway cause pain (study ; study)
How long will plantar fasciitis last?
Plantar fasciitis and plantar pain is poorly understood and there is no perfect treatment. However, 75% of plantar fasciitis cases resolve spontaneously (no treatments or changes) within a year (study). We’ll show you some tips in the next few paragraphs, but feel confident that you’ll be able to get over this problem quickly.
Can you run with plantar fasciitis?
If you have pain it’s always worth questioning if running is a good idea. If the pain is severe, especially during regular daily activities, it’s worth getting checked out by a medical professional to rule out a more serious injury.
But, if the pain is not severe here are a few things to think about:
- Does it hurt just walking around or only when I’m running?
- If it only hurts running, how far into the run does it start?
So can you run with plantar fasciitis? Well, if you’re largely pain free at rest and can get some miles in without pain, it’s probably ok to keep doing that. If the pain starts around 20 minutes, run 15 and call it a win! Sometimes entirely stopping training comes with its own drawbacks. If it hurts the entire time you’re running, what is the overall trend? If it’s getting worse, that’s a good sign to pull back and focus on getting stronger.
Pain happens when our training overwhelms a body part’s tolerance for training. So, the best thing we can do is try to make the part that hurts stronger. This will make it less likely to get overwhelmed in the future.
Exercises for plantar fasciitis
This simple routine of a few exercises can help you strengthen the plantar area which should help resolve pain and prevent it from coming back. If you do about 3 sets of about 10 reps of each of these exercises 3 times per week, you’ll be on the right track.
Exercise 1: Toe elevated calf raises
Why it works: this exercise loads the plantar fascia while also strengthening the calf. One (study) found it to be highly effective in folks with plantar fasciitis over the long term.
Exercise 2: Soleus Raises
Why it works: strengthening the calf muscle complex is helpful for all runners. This exercise strengthens the soleus which runners frequently overlook.
Exercise 3: Toe Yoga
Why it works: this exercise strengthens the foot intrinsic muscles. Foot muscle weakness doesn’t cause plantar fasciitis, but athletes with plantar pain often score poorly on foot strength indexes (study)
Want this routine of exercises customized for your ability, soreness, and training program? Download the Recover app and try this routine for free! We have an unlimited free trial, and if you love it, you can upgrade for less than the price of one trip to a physical therapist!
If you don’t know us, we’re so glad you stopped by our page. Recover athletics is a team of runners, doctors, physical therapists, and entrepreneurs. We’ve made it our mission to help runners around the world prevent injury. Meet our team.