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The Secret to Fixing Plantar Fascitis and Heel Pain
December 3, 2009

Plantar fascitis or heel spur pain is a stubborn issue to get rid of.  Plantar fascitis' classic symptom is a searing or tearing pain on the bottom of the foot when you first wake up and walk which then resolves after more walking. Anything with "-itis" after it simply means inflammation. So plantar fascitis is an inflammed plantar fascia. Like many medical labels, this term does not describe the underlying reasons for plantar fascitis. Hence you see all sorts of remedies out there which have little effect.

Typically heel pain presents as an exquisite tenderness on the heel when walking. Both diagnoses are somewhat related because of their anatomy. In order to get rid of these issues it's important to understand why they occur.

The plantar fascia is  a broad fibrous tissue on the bottom of the foot, extending from the heel to the toes. Fascia isn't like a muscle--it doesn't contract on its own. It merely stretches slightly and then rebounds like a tough rubberband. Pointing blame at the plantar fascia is like yelling at the bowling ball that just dropped on your foot. It's not the bowling ball's fault, it's your hand's fault for letting it go. In plantar fascitis, the plantar fascia is just responding to abnormal stresses being placed on it.

The purpose of the plantar fascia is to assist with the spring-action of the foot. When you step on the foot it slightly flattens out. As your body passes over the foot, it springs back into shape with the help of the plantar fascia. Understanding this will help you visualize how to fix the problem.

There's a multimillion dollar industry out there making products to stretch the plantar fascia. These products evolved because of the tearing feeling in the morning on the bottom of the foot during those first steps. Well, if there's tearing, then the fascia must be too tight, right? Wrong. The plantar fascia merely returned to it's normal length during the night and your foot excessively flattened out while walking which abruptly stretched the plantar fascia. Stretching the fascia during the night won't correct the underlying problem--that of a collapsing foot.

Heel pain typically occurs near the insertion point of the planar fascia on the heel bone. I've found heel pain occurs in people with a history of plantar fascitis or that plantar fascitis follows heel pain. Both are caused, and helped, by the same thing.

So what's at the bottom of these issues (so to speak)? The problem actually has to do with a third issue we haven't mentioned yet. There is a muscle deep to the plantar fascia called the flexor digitorum brevis. This muscle runs from the heel bone to the toes and helps maintain the arch of the foot. It supports the plantar fascia. When this muscle begins to fail, the foot flattens more than it should, stressing the plantar fascia and its insertion at the heel. Strengthening this muscle has fixed the majority of the plantar fascitis and heel pain patients I've seen.

How to do this? It's simple. Sit down with a towel under your foot. Now scrunch the towel with your toes keeping the heel down on the floor. Bunch it up under your arch and then spread it back out to start again. Repeat this 3 times. Perform this 5-10x per day for one week and you should feel a significant difference in your pain. You can also do this while standing, scrunching the toes up in your shoe. No one will even know you're doing it.

The reason you need to do so many repetitions and sets is because each step you take, lengthens and weakens the flexor digitorum brevis muscle. You take many steps during the day so you'll need to perform a lot of repetitions to counter that. After a week of this, your muscle should be on its way to restoring its normal length and tension.

This information and exercise can be found in my book, Fixing You: Foot & Ankle Pain. Let me know how it goes!


The Secret to Core Strength for Back Pain
December 2, 2009

Search any health or fitness magazine and you'll see how important core strength is for back pain by virtue of the number of articles devoted to the subject. In fact, there are over 30,000 search hits each month about core strength on Google. Fitness instructors and medical professionals all espouse the benefits of core strength for chronic pain. Then why do we still have back pain? After all, many of you have been subjecting yourselves to endless abdominal exercises for years and still have that nagging pain. So, if it were a matter of just strengthening the core, we really shouldn't be reading another word about back pain--but we do.

So, obviously core strengthening is not the key to fixing back pain--or at least how it is traditionally taught. Back pain stems from a functional problem with the pelvis and spine. Most back pain can be categorized into three root causes. All of these causes take into account the pelvis's relationship to the spine.

What I mean by this is that, for various reasons, often the pelvis is tilted either forward, backward, or sideways. The spine then adjusts for these pelvic positions compensating in the opposite direction. For instance with an anterior pelvic tilt (where the pelvis is tilted forward), the spine will then compensate by bending backward or extending more to maintain an upright position. This increases lumbar lordosis (the inward curve of the lower spine) creating a spine that, more or less, becomes stuck in this position. During normal daily activities the spine moves maintaining this new posture.

This is the essence of why core strengthening doesn't work, in and of itself, to fix back pain. Because the core is strengthened in a position that reinforces the original pelvic and spinal alignment causing pain. Don't get me wrong, it's possible to stumble upon the right way to strengthen the core and help relieve back pain. That is why you'll read of so many people who were helped by one particular method or another. But remember, at least as many people have not been helped by it or have been made worse. You never read about those people.

When I look at yoga or Pilates exercises for back pain, they are usually taught in a series. If you look closely, half of the exercises in the series does one thing to the spine and half does the opposite. That is why they can sometimes be beneficial, because half the time you've happened to do the right thing for your spine. But that's also why they don't really help the spine, because half the time you've happened to do the wrong thing for your spine.

Probably more important than core strength is understanding how your daily activities are contributing to your back pain. After all, you spend far more time at your job than you do strengthening your core don't you?

Now, I know a lot of you will think I'm just plugging my book here and I am--for the purpose of helping you understand exactly why you have back pain and what to do about it. The key to developing a core strengthening program that helps your back pain is to first understand why you have back pain. Sounds pretty obvious doesn't it?


Chronic Doubt & Chronic Pain
November 16, 2009

One of the toughest aspects when talking with someone with chronic pain is feeling their sense of defeat and doubt. The hardest part of helping people with chronic pain is getting them to believe they can still heal their pain. Fear is a big obstacle here. Fear of being let down, fear of hurting themselves, fear of spending a lot of money on another dead end, and fear of getting hopes up only to be dashed-- again. All of this contributes to doubt that anyone can really help them. After all, haven't they visited the best specialists in their fields?

I don't blame people with chronic pain one bit for their doubts. So many doctors, specialists, therapists, and other practitioners haven't been able to help them--why should I be any different? They've been in pain for so long, it must be permanent--mustn't it? If there was something new under the sun, surely the word would have gotten out by now--wouldn't it?

Besides, there was an X-Ray or MRI with a disk bulge, herniated disk, spinal stenosis, degenerated disk, arthritis, or any number of other diagnoses that showed exactly why they have pain. There's a physical thing causing their pain--they actually saw it!

But is that structural issue really causing their pain? If that was the case, why didn't surgery help? Why did the pain pop up somewhere else after the surgery? Could it be that the same issue that caused that structural problem is also causing their pain? Could it be that the structural problem seen on the MRI or X-Ray is separate from the issue that is causing the pain? Could it be that the structural problems are instead a symptom of the underlying roots of their pain, borne out in a physical form?

I believe the roots of back, neck, or other types of pain are usually separate from these diagnoses. I believe these root causes create these diagnoses. Here's why. If these problems were really the source of people's pain then I shouldn't be able to make anyone painfree because I'm not a surgeon. How could I possibly help someone with spinal stenosis without correcting the spinal stenosis? The same goes for disk bulges, degenerated disks or any of the other diagnoses mentioned above.

But they do become painfree. They are able to resume their normal life again. In fact they are able to do much more than they could because they are armed with knowledge of their condition and what makes it worse or better. They have the tools to fix themselves instead of being dependent upon me to fix them. Everyone has the ability to fix themselves. The only thing they're missing is the knowledge to do so.

That's where my books come in. You are now closer than you've ever been to fixing your chronic pain. I know this sounds presumptuous but it is true. My books will teach you to understand your pain from an anatomical, biomechanical, and movement-based perspective. Though it may sound difficult, it is all quite simple. Don't worry, I won't overwhelm you with boring technical jargon. I'll explain it just as I'm explaining this to you now. Besides, I have video clips on the Fixing You website of all the exercises in my books to make sure you get it right. And I am always here to help.

Those of you with years of chronic pain, believe you can be fixed. Know that the answers exist to eliminate your pain. Instead of relying on someone else, rely on yourself. My books will give you the tools to do so.  Suspend your doubts for just a little while. If you have reached this website then you are closer than you've ever been to fixing your pain--for good. You can do it!


Harnessing the Intangible
November 11, 2009

Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub,

It is on the hole at the center that the use of the cart hinges.

We make a vessel from a lump of clay,

It is the empty space within that vessel that makes it useful.

We make doors and windows for a room,

But it is these empty spaces that make a room livable.

Thus, while the tangible has advantages,

It is the intangible that makes it useful.

Lao Tsu


I have a client I'm seeing for weight loss right now. She's having trouble dropping the weight even though her workout frequency and intensity have increased. The problem we've isolated is her diet and cravings for sweets. She's an intelligent woman and understands perfectly what she is doing to undermine her weight loss goals. But she seems incapable of making the hard decisions to eliminate her bad habits.

I've run into this many times before where a client hires me to help them with weight loss goals. We develop a training program to get them there but they fall apart when forced to change their eating habits. Time passes and nothing happens other than strength or endurance gains. Then, one day--click! It all comes together. They find the motivation to make the right choices and weight melts away. I've asked my clients what exactly made them finally commit to the process. Not one of them had a clue other than they just "decided" it was finally time. What is it that triggers people to really commit to their goals? How do we turn on the switch? I think if we could harness this intangible ability, all the fad diets, weird workout equipment, and extreme workout techniques would disappear because everyone would be making the right choices all along.


A Gliding Femur Causing Back Pain
November 11, 2009

I've had a couple people in recently with back pain. During my evaluation, I noticed the head of one of their femurs glided forward in the hip socket. Both of these people had rotated spines. Correcting the gliding femur head eliminated their back pain in both instances.

I think the mechanism here is that when the head of the femur is in the wrong place, the axis of rotation has changed for the hip joint. While bending over, that axial change then alters how the pelvis contributes to forward flexion, causing a rotating pelvis. The spine then responds to this by rotating as well.

Correcting the femur head tracking not only eliminated their back pain but also increased the range of motion of forward flexion. Suddenly it appeared their hamstrings were longer. In my mind, the hamstrings were never short, it was the altered hip joint mechanics that restricted forward flexion instead.

The body is so fascinating!


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