Plantar Fasciitis can really put a serious dent in your training. It’s hard to get rid of and likes to come back when you least expect. The usual treatment is ice, tennis ball rolling, ultrasound, splinting etc. While these are all good therapies and will decrease or remove the symptoms, the underlying cause is not treated and is likely to come back.

The cause of its appearance/reappearance is theorized to be a dysfunction along a fascial sling, called the superficial back line. If you are not easily grossed out, you can see a video of a dissected sling here….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUNcQMP2gwE

If one of the muscles in the sling is not functioning correctly, the sling loses tension and the nervous system tries to compensate by tightening another part of the sling. Often it is the calves which tighten to compensate for the slack portion of the sling, which in turn tightens the plantar fascia causing the associated pain. The nervous system has the propensity to further tighten the calves by mistakenly asking the calves to turn on every time an agonist or functional synergist muscle is required to fire.

Sensory Motor Repatterning (SMR) finds faulty movement patterns created by the nervous system and corrects them, thereby allowing the calves and plantar fascia to return to their normal tension. Three sessions is normally enough to remove these faulty patterns, then the tissue will resolve back to it's own healthy state allowing patients to kiss plantar fasciitis goodbye for good.

#plantarfasciitis #chronicpain