{"id":1465,"date":"2017-08-01T13:57:48","date_gmt":"2017-08-01T17:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/?p=1465"},"modified":"2018-02-21T13:52:13","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T18:52:13","slug":"three-exercises-plantar-fasciitis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/2017\/08\/01\/three-exercises-plantar-fasciitis\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Exercises for Plantar Fasciitis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <a href=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/find-a-provider\/physician\/Geaney-Lauren\">Dr. Lauren Geaney<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Plantar fasciitis, or &#8220;heel spur pain,&#8221; is the most common cause of pain under the heel. The pain is usually located under the center of the heel, but can also extend into the arch.\u00a0It is caused by small tears in the ligament along the bottom of the foot, called the plantar fascia.\u00a0If you notice\u00a0pain when you\u00a0first get out of bed in the morning or when you\u00a0stand up after being seated, you may be suffering from plantar fasciitis. The pain typically improves once you\u00a0are up and moving around\u00a0for a while.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/161\/2017\/08\/FootPain-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/161\/2017\/08\/FootPain-1-1024x506.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"506\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The average age of patients who develop plantar fasciitis is 45.\u00a0 It is twice as common in women as men. It also occurs more frequently in people who are overweight.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is that more than 90% of plantar fasciitis cases \u00a0improve without surgery or injections within ten\u00a0months. \u00a0Non-surgical treatments include:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Stretching exercises for the Achilles tendon and plantar fascia ligament<\/li>\n<li>Silicone heel cushions inserted into comfortable walking shoes<\/li>\n<li>A\u00a0night splint or boot\u00a0to wear to sleep at night<\/li>\n<li>Cortisone\u00a0injections, in limited cases where other treatments have failed<\/li>\n<li>Shock wave therapy<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>There are three\u00a0helpful\u00a0exercises that we recommend to anyone suffering from plantar fasciitis symptoms.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Exercise 1<\/strong>: With one hand grasp toes and pull ankle and toes up towards shin to stretch plantar fascia. With the other hand massage plantar fascia ligament in the arch.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/161\/2017\/08\/plantarfasciitis-toe-pull.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/161\/2017\/08\/plantarfasciitis-toe-pull.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"162\" height=\"170\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Exercise 2<\/strong>: Stand against wall with painful foot back, leg straight, and forward leg bent.\u00a0 Keeping heel on floor, lean into wall until stretch is felt in calf and hold.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/161\/2017\/08\/plantarfasciitis-wall-stretch.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/161\/2017\/08\/plantarfasciitis-wall-stretch.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"159\" height=\"160\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Exercise 3<\/strong>: Roll the arch of your foot back and forth over a tennis ball to stretch the plantar fascia ligament.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/161\/2017\/08\/plantarfasciitis-tennis-ball.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/161\/2017\/08\/plantarfasciitis-tennis-ball.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"173\" height=\"119\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Dr. Lauren Geaney Plantar fasciitis, or &#8220;heel spur pain,&#8221; is the most common cause of pain under the heel. The pain is usually located under the center of the heel, but can also extend into the arch.\u00a0It is caused by small tears in the ligament along the bottom of the foot, called the plantar&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":1993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-30 19:58:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1465"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2296,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465\/revisions\/2296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/orthopedics-sports-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}