How to Fix Plantar Fasciitis (NO MORE HEEL PAIN!) – ATHLEAN-X™

by YouTube Team

Plantar Fasciitis is one of the most common recurring tendonitis injuries that active people will have to deal with. Often times, the reason why the plantar fascia keeps getting inflamed and the symptoms keep coming back is due to the fact that we never truly treat the cause of the pain rather just the source of the pain. In this video, I’m going to show you what is really causing your heel pain so you can finally fix it forever.

First, it helps to understand the role of the plantar fascia. The real job of this tough structure is to support your arch in standing. It runs from the calcaneus or heel distally towards the tendon sheaths of the toes. Essentially, it spans the entire arch and can be felt if you strum across this area with your thumb. For those that have inflammation of the fascia, you feel a distinct knife-life stabbing pain in your heel when you take a step (especially in the morning).

The reason the symptoms are particularly worst in the morning is that the plantar fascia has had a chance to shorten and tighten up a bit over night with your foot remaining in a plantar flexed position mostly from the covers pulling your ankle down. Even later in the day however, the pain is obvious and it prevents those that suffer from it from walking, running or competing normally.

The problem is that people often times will seek out treatment for their plantar fasciitis and be left with either no resolution to the problem or worse, they feel slightly better but the pain comes back quickly. This is because doing nothing but ultrasounding, rubbing, massaging or rolling a lacrosse ball on the arch is not getting at the real problem. You are simply attacking the symptom and not the cause. So let’s get to the cause.

Most of the time, if you test your calf flexibility on the side of pain and determine that you have calf tightness then you definitely want to fix that since that is almost always the cause of same sided pain. The problem is however, doing a traditional hanging standing calf stretch off the stairs is not going to fix this pain. Instead, you need to realize that the pain is coming from the inability of the foot to maintain a rigid position at the time you lift your heel off the ground to propel your body. It is maintaining an everted heel with a loose midfoot which creates an unstable foot to try and press off of. This will result in an enormous amount of stress being shifted to the fascia to do something it is not equipped to do.

So if you want to stretch your calf you have to place the foot back in the position you are struggling to maintain. This is shown in three different ways in the video. Now, if the pain you are getting is coming from a side that does not exhibit calf tightness then you would want to look to the opposite side glute medius for weakness or a lack of thoracic extension or rotation to that side.

When the glute medium is weak on the opposite hip you get a dropping of the hip on that side. This forces the opposite foot (the one you are having the pain on) into pronation and creates an unstable foot once again. Either way, regardless of what the cause is you can see that it has nothing to do with the foot itself and everything to do with the joints above like the ankle, hip or spine.

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22 comments

ATHLEAN-X™ December 20, 2018 - 6:37 pm

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Kinga Debreczeni December 29, 2021 - 10:55 am

Very helpful!!! Thank you!

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Juanita Fox December 29, 2021 - 9:26 pm

IM NOT HAVING PAIN IN THE HEEL, ARCH OR BALL.. BUT MORE THE TENDON AREA.

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Izzyanyi December 30, 2021 - 4:33 am

Do you have to keep your leg muscles engaged while swinging the leg?

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BERSERKER BARBELL December 30, 2021 - 3:24 pm

Thank you sir 👍

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K TIPP USMC December 30, 2021 - 4:37 pm

I have never been shown that calf stretch version. Twist the legs over before. Did it for 10 sec and instant relief. WOW! Awesome job.

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HawaiianRussian January 1, 2022 - 1:43 am

Every morning I would wake up and my first steps of the day it felt like my bones were going through my heel. I stopped running after a while and I got depressed. I’m gonna start to do these stretched and pray they work

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Shawn Chickowski January 1, 2022 - 2:55 am

Mine started because I tried to start into barefoot running with the barefoot shoe. I'm over weight and I thought I was slowly integrating this style, however was abruptly halted due to PF. Great information. Thank you!

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Melissa Mobley January 1, 2022 - 3:02 pm

Really does make since thank you so much

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Sansu PADRI January 1, 2022 - 6:53 pm

I just did some daily heel exercises using a bottle.. rolling back and front! And magically PAIN is gone!!💯🙌

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Ryan Santer January 2, 2022 - 3:20 pm

Makes complete sense, wasn’t sure where you were going at the begging of video but thanks will try this and hope this helps.

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Seal Of Approval Gaming January 3, 2022 - 7:12 am

what about for post-clubbed foot surgery people like me? would the first (calf tightness) exercise work? Im afraid to make any problems worse. For example, I cannot tiptoe to bring my dorsal foot flush to my tibia even remotely close. My calves also go as low down as just halfway down my lower leg if that helps. I cramp at my plantar fascia and calves when i try my hardest to mimic that tiptoe that all my family can do and others. 🙁 I also learned that i never really learned how to walk correctly because I rarely use my ankle/calves much since its harder to tiptoe; its all pretty much my upper leg and hamstrings pulling my legs behind me if i think about it.

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Pegasus January 3, 2022 - 5:23 pm

Man talking in video is KGB , french and israli Intel and isisi
Child killer

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Wil Thomas January 3, 2022 - 9:46 pm

Thanks bro

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HanaBe Design January 3, 2022 - 11:22 pm

My boyfriend had so much pain with plantar fasciitis, and his pain is waaaay less after doing stretch with this video. Thank you so much !!! This is the Best explanation !!!!

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easternangle January 4, 2022 - 11:44 am

I fixed mine with steroid infections in the heel. I was walking on my toes for a while 😆

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John January 4, 2022 - 10:20 pm

Makes so much sense!

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Drew St. Chair January 4, 2022 - 11:28 pm

I did it with arch support insoles and walking

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Priscilla Meeler January 4, 2022 - 11:40 pm

wow…can't wait to try this

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Janet Davis January 4, 2022 - 11:48 pm

I’ve had it a couple times. It feels like some one pounded a nail strait in to your heal and looks that way in a x ray

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Brindy Stoler January 5, 2022 - 2:08 am

Thank you. This is helpful.

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Becky Ethington January 5, 2022 - 2:30 am

The entire bottom of my feet hurt…a LOT. It's been called plantar fasciitis but I 'm not so sure. I have learned it gets worse when I train hard so I definitely need to change how I train. Where do I start to figure this out? Why would my entire foot bed ache?

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