Plantar fasciitis?

MonaLisaLianne

The main thing you need to do is stretch your calf muscles, which in turn stretches your Achilles Tendon (in your heel) and this will help. Stand as though you are going to do lunges - one leg in front with knee bent, the other stretched out behind you. Keep BOTH feet flat on the floor, and stretch out the calf on the back leg as much as possible. Hold for a bit, then sitch legs. Do it again. Do this 4-6 times a day and you'll eventually get relief- at least I did.

Sadly the achilles tendon doesn't reach around the bottom of the foot as part of the plantar, and neither does the plantar reach around past the ankle to the leg.

That stretch may feel good and be needed for other reasons, but it won't help the plantar at all.

Only muscles that spans that gap is the flexor hallucis for your toes to pull down, and that stretch would help it. And it is a small part of the arch too, so what may have felt like plantar pain could actually be that, but it would be a minor twinge, not the full on pain the plantar brings.

And actually, you'd want to stretch both calf muscles (you have 2 actually going in to 1 achilles tendon), straight leg for the gastrocnemius like you describe, but also for the soleus a bent knee version, which is actually better for the hallucis.

So you are right and every medical expert is wrong?

http://www.healthline.com/health/plantar-fasciitis#Overview1
http://saveyourself.ca/tutorials/plantar-fasciitis.php
http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/sport-injuries/foot-heel-pain/plantar-fasciitishttp://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=a00149
http://www.athletico.com/2012/05/09/plantar-fasciitis-solutions/
http://thestick.com/info/contact/how-it-works/how-i-manage-plantar-fasciitis/
http://running.competitor.com/2014/06/photos/new-techniques-treating-plantar-fasciitis_96398
http://www.coreperformance.com/knowledge/injury-pain/plantar-fasciitis.html
http://www.drpribut.com/sports/heelhtm.htm
http://mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/ncal/mdo/presentation/conditions/condition_viewall_page.jsp?condition=Condition_Heel_Pain.xml

I could list dozens more sources, but why bother.

heybales

From one of your links, the insertion of the plantar.



Stretching the achilles may bring relief to a totally tight area, but keep checking and you'll find those sites that discuss why something is useful, will admit that achilles stretch doesn't actually stretch the plantar. It helps potential other problems and removes them from the picture, which could still be useful.

As that picture shows, the tendon isn't effected by the bend of the ankle at all, it only bridges the bottom of the foot.
But the achilles inserts right above it, spanning the ankle.

Now, like I said, there are 2 tendons that also make up the longitudinal arch along with the plantar, and if those are tight those stretches may help.
http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/anatomy/human-muscles/ankle-foot/flexor-hallucis-longus

But that's why many of the comments above regarding roller pin or cold can or such are good, for the minimal stretch you'll get out of a tendon, those are at least hitting it.

Insertion of achilles.