Fix Your Plantar Fasciitis-Episode 2

We’re starting the work of this series, as I always do, distal to proximal. In the case of plantar fasciitis, that means starting at the head and even (!) the forearms! Yes, tight triceps can also, sometimes, play a part in tight feet and foot pain.

Massaging your forearms is super simple with this little tool from Amazon for about $10. Then we move into rolling the triceps out, which are the secret gnarly place that no one ever thinks to massage—it helps alleviate shoulder and neck tension. In the video I use this roller, but you can use any other type of roller/massager you like.

From there, there’s a yummy little head massage. The fascial line we’re dealing with in this episode is primarily the upper aspect of the spine and how it wraps around the head into the eyebrows. Therefore, we want to get some head and forehead relaxation so that it flows downward towards the feet.

Top this all off with some stretching of the shoulder blades, (there’s an easy tip in the video to make this common stretch more intense) and then getting some form of whole, spinal stretch. You could lay over a big yoga ball, but I choose to go propless in this video and do a version of yoga plow pose.

Lastly, we do a simple neck stretch with a hand towel. This is a great, simple exercise for training the neck muscles to ‘chillax’ and that they can rest as though cradled in a hammock.

Next episode we’ll get into how plantar fasciits and tight feet are wrapped up with a tight diaphragm. Everything always connects back to the breath!!

Why People Don't Heal And How They Can

I first came across Carolyn Myss, the author of this book, about 8 years ago. Since then, I've started this book 3 times and stopped because I saw different aspects of myself in the pages I wasn't yet ready to confront. If you were to put one self-improvement book on your summer reading list, I'd highly suggest this one.

Many of my clients initially come to me because they suffer from chronic pain and chronic fatigue. Naturally, they feel angry at their body and that they can't live their lives to the extent that they would like. Feeling stuck and depressed is an understandable companion to this anger. That said, the more anger we project back onto our bodies, the longer and more fraught the healing process is. A more effective path to healing is seeing the pain as a point of entry to explore deep within ourselves. In Why People Don't Heal and How They Can, Myss offers some ways to identify if we're suffering from what she calls Woundology and belief systems that could stifle our healing process.

These are the author's top 5 belief systems that most people get caught in when they're in pain or are ill. To move forward, we have to detach from the belief.

5 Myths of Healing

1. My life is defined by my wound (Woundology).
Seeing life through the lens of a traumatic experience means projecting that onto every future relationship and experience (though a book I wrote about last year here says the brain naturally will do this after trauma). Those stuck in this pattern will seek out a social support network that will be sympathetic to their experience and then they never have to move past it. Moreover, they connect with others by comparing wounds and feel empowered if they are more wounded than someone else. She specifically mentions survivor and addiction groups and that they are helpful at certain stages. To continue healing, however, one has to move past that identity of survivor or addict.

In short, we can get stuck in the healing process if we define our identity and live our lives through our wounds rather than evolving past them. It can be a tricky process because someone may think they're addressing their wounds, but what they're really doing is carrying them around like a badge of honor. Over time, our wounds accumulate and gradually suck our energy, leaving us prone to depression, pain and illness. To move past your wounds, focus efforts on things that feed you rather than deplete you. If a current event triggers you to recall all the other times this has happened to you, rather than listing the wounds, look at what you're doing in your life that is creating part of that pattern.

2. Being healthy means being alone.
This is a system that I've personally been guilty of over the last couple of years until I acknowledged that by engaging with others means I have to grow through the things that trigger me. When I envisioned myself as healthy, I was the only one in the room rather than being surrounded by those who I know love and support me. Myss contends healing is an ongoing process that is best done in a community that can help support our changes; "Healing does not represent the closure of the needs of the heart; rather, it is a doorway toward opening your heart." She cites American individualism as a culture block to realizing this yet also acknowledges that sometimes we do need to separate from someone or a community to grow.

3. Feeling pain means being destroyed by pain.
It's normal to believe that pain or illness is negative, yet these feelings can also push us to explore within ourselves and move away from destructive habits and behavioral patterns. She cautions against relying too much on prescription drugs or painkillers in general because they can mask the symptoms of what our body is asking us to heal. She suggests using a mindfulness practice like yoga or meditation to help with healing consciously.

4. All illness is a result of negativity and we are damaged at our core.
Myss encourages readers to not immediately blame a failure to heal on a past experience or negative belief. Illness is complex and there's plenty of toxins in our environment and genes that can be an aspect of illness. Our focus should instead be on our ability to create change over controlling our thoughts. Sometimes it's better to just let go of the negative thoughts or past experiences over trying to dive into them and understand them....that can do more harm than good.

5. True change is impossible.
Most of us don't really like change and to change but healing and change are the same thing. We associate illness with fear and negativity so it can be intimidating to confront the illness and look at how much we really take care of ourselves versus the needs of others. Try shifting the belief that healing will be hard or depressing to relieving and exciting.

This is one of the few books on healing that I've read that actually provides a structure for analyzing one's beliefs and how to better understand and forgive--she actually encourages making a chart/spreadsheet and guides readers on specificially how to structure it. That said, it's a very East meets West, spiritually-minded approach, so if that's not your bag, this may not be for you. If it is, Myss has a unique perspective on understanding how American culture looks at pain and illness that I found to be eye-opening in forgiving myself and others because we're all stuck in some collective, old mindsets that we can let go of reacting to individually.

An Energetic Approach to Movement

Movement is more than just muscles contracting to make bones move like we see in the gym machine pictures. Our body is a whole unit in which everything participates to create movement. For this reason, I approach the body from a fascial or connective tissue perspective which informs how various parts of the body work in conjunction to make the body shift and move. As I studied the human body, I observed subtle patterns of how things worked together and I could feel someone's jaw release as I stretched their quads (front thigh muscles). Imagine my excitement when I read Anatomy Trains in which Thomas Myers details all of these connections I was feeling. Even more neat is how these fascial lines also mirror Traditional Chinese Medicine/Acupuncture meridians or energetic pathways.

When someone steps into my studio, I immediately begin observing how these fascial lines may be locked too tight or too loose and how that is impacting their movement as well as contributing to pain they could be having. This means that your neck tension, for example, could be coming from a tight IT band. We then stretch and strenghten these other pulleys that could be pulling on a spot where the pain is felt.

This leads to more than just a muscular contraction approach to what is going on in the body both in terms of pain and improving athletic performance. Yoga and martial arts have understood this fluidity in movement approach for centuries. The cool part is you can actually become so connected to your body that you'll be able to feel how your foot tightening on one side is causing your shoulder blade to brace which may be impacting your tennis swing.

Employing the insight of fascial lines/acupuncture meridians and consciously moving through them helps to shift and move energy though the body. For some this may just feel like a muscular release or even a greater mindy body connection. This can also mean that you feel lighter on your feet as you walk and run, or maybe more relaxed and supported by the earth. You may find breathing easier or that you have more power. Some days this means that you can have an emotional release or even feel euphoria as you 'exercise'.

One of the beginnning concepts I teach is that we walk from the front of our low abs/pelvic muscles and that our shoulders balance into our solar plexus. So, it's kind of like we have a triangle from the pelvis to our legs and then if you flip that triangle up-side-down, your shoulders drop into your diaphragm. From an eastern perspective, we're walking from the 2nd chakra or lower dantian which also happens to be our pelvic muscles, the base of our core. Our shoulders nestle onto the shelf of our 3rd chakra or our middle dantian which is also our diaphragm, or the top of our core. Feeling these connections automatically means you're using your core in a fluid sense, instead of overly contracting these muscles, restricting the breath and tightening the hips. Connecting to the core in this way also helps to open these lower energy centers where many of us hold our emotional wounds.

An energetic approach to movement will leave you feeling more relaxed, open and supported which means more energy and less fatigue at the end of the day. Tapping into these connections always takes sports performance to a whole new level--you'll feel lighter as well as more agile. Schedule an appointment to learn how to tap more deeply into your personal power!

Flexible, Grounded Feet=A Strong Core

Until I got really nerdy about my running stride 10 years ago, I was quite foot phobic. We pay for others to touch our feet or hope for a little love from our significant other on the couch, but most of us don't consciously massage our feet like we foam roll our legs or actively strengthen our feet like we do our arms. It's funny because our feet are our main mode of transport yet they're low on the self-care totem pole.

Grounded feet help with balance.

How are the feet related to core stability and strength?

The feet aren't what I call Hollywood Muscles. No one is going to eye you up at the pool for your toe muscles. Yet, the feet mirror our core muscles and help to support deep, instrinsic movement from the core with every step. The feet are the first in a series of archways to the body that act as suspension bridges and shock absorbers as we move. Two of those other archways, or diaphragms, are the pelvic (read: pelvic floor) and breathing diaphragms. If you've read some of my other posts, you already know how much I love talking about these diaphragms, more about that here and here...because, they are the real foundation to core strength! Yes, people, I know most of you out there probably hate ab exercises. Good news is, if you keep your feet relaxed and open, you're always exercising your core muscles.

The feet should act as little trampolines as we walk, but they often become more like bricks of ice because of the types of shoes we wear (more about that here) and from breath holding--once again, you hold in one diaphragm, the others are affected.

Open feet are grounded feet.

Keeping the feet loose and open, has an impact on shoulder tension as well. When our body feels supported by the earth, we cease to put the weight of the world on our shoulders. All of that goes into the ground, also known as grounding or earthing. :)

Here is a simple way to open your feet, even while you watch tv. 

Once your feet are relaxed, you can get even deeper into strengthening them. I love this set of exercises, because it helps to restore the motions our feet most often forget, spreading and using the sole of the foot. Kind of like how our pelvic muscles atrophy sitting in a chair all day, the sole of the foot weakens from wearing shoes all the time. This is a small sample of a series of exercises I do with my clients to wake up their feet and consciously connect that feeling to their core as they walk and move. Afterward my clients often say they feel like their feet are wider and that they can sense the pads of their feet. I call it Frodo feet!

The new sensory awareness from open feet will not just help you ground, it will also help your balance in other activities like yoga, martial arts and dance, not to mention walking. For a more personalized connection to those activities, including gait, make an appointment to come to the studio. In the meantime, opening and grounding your feet will have you using your core in a deep and profound way without even trying! 

Loosen Your Pelvic Floor, Open Your Root Chakra!

When we hear "pelvic floor" it's usually with regard to women who have had children and how their pelvic floors become weak or distended. Years go by and then there's a new wave of pelvic floor awareness with prostate issues or pelvic organ prolapse. Based on my work with clients, I find tight pelvic floors to be super common due to stress and prolonged hours of sitting which contribute to lower back and hip pain/tightness.

What is the pelvic floor, exactly?

I see it as more than just our elimination muscles. If you were wearing brief underwear as in the photo, your pelvic muscles are in contact with fabric. So, there's three main sections:

• Front-lower abs, the little triangle between your hip sockets and pubic bone
• Undercarriage-elimination muscles and connective tissue
• Back-hip rotational muscles, gluteals

How does the pelvic floor tighten?

Sitting, feeling stressed and holding our breath. I wrote more about this in detail here. If you're prone to sucking in your stomach or have suffered from digestive issues, these muscles would also become chronically tense.

In addition to stress-holding, we can also have some unresolved emotional issues that can cause these muscles to restrict and hold.

What the heck is a 'root chakra'?

You can look at chakras as being areas of the body that emotionally (energetically) represent certain things we all face in life. In the case of the root chakra, it correlates to things that are foundational to our being--safety, security (including financial), family/clan identity and physical health. Issues here can come from not just our personal experience, but from the experiences of our family members. SO, pretty much everyone has crap to work through in this chakra.

Fear is a big factor in holding patterns here including, pelvic floor tightness. If we're constantly bracing for something to happen or afraid that there won't be enough, the muscles of the pelvis respond to that emotional outlook. Origins of that fear can include:

• Abuse, including abandonment or neglect
• Poverty, war
• Major personal illness or in your family
• Not having good personal boundaries so we're constantly at the whim of others' actions
• Inherited trauama and issues from our families

How can you shift these patterns?

Physically, you can practice relaxing these muscles.

In my one-on-one sessions with clients we discover where you're holding physically and emotionally and then intentionally create space there. I construct a series of exercise sequences to reinforce a new pattern in your body that doesn't involve bracing or restriction. With repetition, your body generates a new neurological pattern via flow instead of holding. To reconnect with your root chakra and maintain a relaxed pelvic floor day-to-day, try these tips.

• Breathe and feel the breath connect down to your pelvic floor. I wrote more about that here.
• Do things that honor your body and its health.
• Celebrate what you already have in your life--these things may not be material or tangible.
• Find and connect with a community to feel a sense of belonging.
• Go outside and put your bare feet in the ground. Feel how you are a living being!