Welcome! This is the first episode of a course designed to help loosen up tight feet, alleviate foot pain and heal plantar fasciitis symptoms. In my decade of experience, there can be reasons for tight feet that arise from other places in the body, including emotional stress.
The top reason I’ve seen over the years is tightness along the backside of the body, what Tom Myers, author of Anatomy Trains, calls the Superficial Back Line. This fascial or connective tissue line goes from the sole of the foot, all the way up that respective side of the spine and connects into the eyebrow. This line primarily gets tight from sitting, but it can also be from lack of rotation in walking and movement (we’ll cover that in a later episode of the course). In other words, your head and forehead tension, is related to your tight feet.
Another aspect to this Superficial Back Line is when people try to hard too have good posture. Pinching your shoulder blades together, a common cue we’re given, tightens the mid-back and can play a part in tensing this line down to the feet. I’ve actually come across this more since the pandemic as people are trying to look a certain way while on screen.
Tightness in the opposite forearm can also (!) be a factor. I see this pattern less from folks typing and more from old sports or injury patterns from childhood. If you played things like golf, tennis, lacrosse, archery or an instrument, that too can play a part in the opposite foot being more tight and prone to plantar fasciitis. The body is crazy.
And, because it’s our body, the breath always plays a part. Short breath cycles or holding the breath, also create tension in the feet. If you try holding your breath now, can you feel that in your own feet? Maybe you feel your head tense? This is always an underlying aspect of plantar fasciitis and contributes to the emotional component of the condition. If you’re stressed, you’re probably holding your breath and then we have the tense, ungrounded feet.
Hope you enjoy and please subscribe on YouTube for alerts on this course as well as future courses and updates on how to improve your body in terms of pain and performance.