The triathlete Helena Herrero gives us podiatric advice to prevent Plantar Fasciitis

One of the injuries that often scares most runners is the Plantar fasciitis mainly because of the imprecise diagnosis and the length and time of treatment.

 

 

In this section today we will not talk about your diagnosis or treatment, but about how to prevent its appearance.

 

Plantar Fasciitis is nothing other than acute inflammation of the plantar aponeurosis of the foot; whose main symptom will be plantar pain in the heel or midfoot, usually due to repetitive microtrauma.

 

In the triathlete most often is a lesion that lasts over time for two reasons:

• The accumulation of training hours.
• To make the race segment on foot with the fatigued muscles behind the bike thus distorting the supports and generally with ultralight shoes with little cushioning and on hard surfaces such as asphalt.

 

It is therefore important to understand the work of the so-called plantar gastrosolus bandage, which is nothing more than an imaginary band that runs all the way down the leg to the tips of the fingers, acting like an imaginary pulley located in the heel.

 

Understanding this concept we will understand also that any overload or excessive tension at any level of this bandage will affect the area of ​​greatest load of our body: the sole of the foot.

 

Therefore, it is best to flee from this injury and we can do it in many ways, some are obvious, such as stretching. every day the entire posterior chain and visit the physio frequently to treat us the overloads and fucking trigger.

 

Another thing that prevents this type of injury is the flexibility and strengthening in Achilles tendon, this can be done by eccentric exercises; for example raise both feet from the ground (on tiptoe) and recover the position lowering very slowly. This is an exercise that has excellent results and we can use it as a warm up exercise before the race.

 

Finally something that I have personally tested and I can attest that it works very well is the Daily self-massage on the soles of the feet; for example before going to bed. The way to do it would be from the center of the heel with the big toe of our hands to the base of the metatarsal heads, from first to fifth and repeat during 2 to 4 minutes. With this we manage to eliminate daily the small tensions that arise in the fascia, also to notice and feel the changes: if one foot is more rigid than another, if it crackles etc.

 

It is something very simple to make and really effective, we just have to lose a few minutes each day and we can do it with any foot cream (in the step we hydrated them that are the forgotten ones), with oils or any cream that we like for example of arnica .

Put it into practice now and you'll see that your feet will thank you

 

Helena Herrero