Arch Pain When Running?!

I can actually speak to this from personal experience. I had shin splints, knee, and hip pain from running. I switched to minimalist shoes, and all 3 of those were literally gone over night because you literally can't run with poor form in those things - it hurts too damn much! So, I was a total convert (and probably got a little too preachy for my own good ).

HOWEVER, I didn't do the transition from chunky heels to minimalist slowly enough, and I ended up with a lot of arch pain, which was probably stress fractures, but I never went to the doc (why bother when they just tell you to take 8 weeks off of running? ). So, I took a couple months off of running came back, and took it really slowly (1/2 mile for a week, 1 mile for a week, 1/5 miles for a week...whatever didn't hurt), and now I have zero pain anywhere due to running. I'm sure this will incite a whole bunch of trollers. People get really passionate about running shoes and technique!

I won't get on a soap box, but if what you're doing hurts, try something else.

It sounds to me like you have weak arches and are probably on your way to stress fractures. Odds are, you need to take a few weeks off of running (you can't just "run through the pain" on this one), and AFTER the pain subsides, you probably need to find shoes with lower arches or incorporate some barefoot workouts to strengthen them up. There's really no other way to get them strong aside from letting them do their job.

My two cents. I'm sure someone will pop on here and tell me that this advice is dangerous - do some research on barefoot TECHNIQUE and educate yourself. It's worth the time. Or just, read Born to Run - lots of great references, and the guy spins a hell of a story . Good luck with your running!

Yeah - arch pain is really common in new new runners (not sure of your exercise background?) because the foot muscles have been babied most of their lives, and they were built to be abused (though gradually building up from infancy to adulthood).

Look at it this way: have you ever watched people at the gym trying to lift heavier weights than they really should? They squirm around and wrench their bodies into awful positions to lift the weight, and sometimes throw our their backs, tear a rotator cuff, etc. Same goes for your foot muscles. Your body is amazing, so if you have crappy running form, it will find a way to compensate to let you do it, but there's a limit to that compensation. If you keep it up, you get the running version of throwing out your back while weight lifting: you get stress fractures, plantar fasciitis, runners knee, etc.

Your arches are weak because they've been babied. An easy strengthening exercise is to just walk around your house barefoot, focusing on landing on the pad of your forefoot. You'll feel ridiculous, like you're prancing, but you will eventually figure out how to do it smoothly. This worked wonders for me. I started buying thin-soled shoes so I could do this more throughout the day, and I think it made a big difference in conjunction with short runs with this stride.

As an aside, one extremely easy way to find your running form is go at a dead sprint uphill for 10 seconds. You'll find that you can't sprint with poor form, particularly on an incline. Then try to mimic that gait on your normal runs. You'll have to do this when your feet are healed though. Don't let anyone tell you that you have to do this barefoot or in minimalist shoes. I've found I can do this in anything, but I do find it easier if there isn't a huge drop in height between the heel and the pad of the foot. Easier, but not required. You can't start something like this till your foot heals though because it will most definitely injure you further (again, personal experience).

Anyway, sorry for the novel. Again, good luck!

Arch pain could suggest PF, or it might indicate that you are underpronating.

Minimalist shoes might help, they might make the problem worse. Difficult to tell.

Minimalist shoes do tend to polarise opinion, worthy of your average religious war to be honest. You'll find plenty uncritical support, equally you'll find plenty of hostility, with neither end of the spectrum actually giving you a balanced view.

You've got two approaches, either barefoot style or zero drop in a more structured shoe. The right answer does depend on what's causing your pain.

Personally for road running I use a support shoe, and for trail running I have a neutral, low drop shoe that's closer to minimalist, but it took a fair amount of effort to transition.

BeckiCharlotte13x wrote: »

I land and roll as you should.

Heel striking?

In that case you'll find barefoot shoes very hard work.