How This Program Was Developed

About 15 years ago, one of my patients was training for our annual Music City Marathon in Nashville, Tennessee and developed plantar fasciitis. 

I began treating her with the traditional protocols that had worked for most of my patients in the past. However, Lauren's condition wasn't improving, and it only seemed to be getting worse.

This forced me to dig deeper into disorders of the foot and lower extremity. I discovered some new information that changed what I knew about how to treat plantar fasciitis effectively.

I learned that plantar fasciitis was more closely related to a tendinopathy and less of an inflammatory condition. I also learned that footwear with narrow toe boxes and heel elevation was a primary cause. 

We altered our treatment protocols and Lauren's condition began to improve immediately.

Here's what we stopped doing:

I stopped telling her to ice her foot

I stopped telling her to stretch her calf muscles like mad with static stretching

I told her to ditch her orthotics

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Here's what we started doing:

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We transitioned her to running shoes with a wide toe box 

We started fascial release on her plantar fascia, calf muscles, and achilles

We included targeted strengthening exercises and progressive loading

We implemented Active Stretching vs. Static Stretching

We were thrilled with her progress.   

She shared her experience with her running group and out of those 100-150 runners, 4 or 5 had plantar fasciitis.  My new treatment protocol resolved their foot issues as well. I began getting more and more referrals for foot, gait and lower extremity conditions an it became a specialty for me.