How to Heal Plantar Fasciitis - My Story

From the ages of 20-26, foot pain was a massive part of my life.

Every morning started the same way. I slowly eased out of bed, held onto railings and dressers as I walked to the bathroom trying to put as little amount of weight on my feet as possible. My fascia (the tendons on the bottom of my feet) felt like they were ON FIRE and could snap at any second.

plantaar fascia image — real time image of my feet in the morning

This is the tell tale sign of plantar fasciitis. Anyone who has dealt with this foot condition can relate.

When I was in college there were many days that I didn’t go to class because the bottoms of my feet would hurt too much to walk the mile or so roundtrip.

I actually quit the soccer team in college because of how much pain I was in on a daily basis. I could suck it up, warm up, and play soccer for 2 hours, but the rest of the day was absolute HELL. It didn’t help that I went to college in the city and had to walk everywhere. Driving to class wasn’t an option.

At my corporate job after college I’d have two lacrosse balls underneath my desk, and I’d roll out my feet … 8 hours per day.

Later when I worked as a Math teacher I would deal with unbearable foot pain. I’d come home from work and hardly be able to walk. I loved working as a soccer coach but I had to quit because standing up for 2 hours on my inflamed fascia became too much to bear.

If this sounds like your pain, I’ve been there. I dealt with plantar fasciitis for 6 years thinking I’d never be pain free. But 10 years later I most definitely am. I blamed my pain on my poor foot genetics. My “high arches”. My “flat feet”. etc. Everything you hear doctors and “experts” say.

I’m here to share with you what worked for me, and what I think would work for pretty much everyone. Conventional medicine has very little understanding of foot health – its time to take back your health!

What I Tried – The Conventional Wisdom

When I first started getting pain in my heel and fascia, I went the traditional route. See a doctor – do what they say. Here’s what they recommended:

Get better insoles

I started with some Dr Scholl’s Plantar Fasciitis insoles. I put them in my Nike Pegasus shoes. (I always had to wear the most supportive shoes possible, because of my horrible feet)

At first, they helped a ton. My arches felt way more supported and soon I couldn’t do anything without these insoles. I even bought an extra pair to put in my soccer shoes as well. However, eventually the pain came back. Like many “fixes” in modern medicine, the insoles provided some temporary pain relief, but since they weren’t treating the cause of my foot pain, the pain came back.

During this whole process, some obvious questions kept coming to my mind…

Were my fascia really inflamed because they didn’t have enough support?
How the hell did humans live for thousands of years without supportive insoles on their feet??

The Boot

Then I tried sleeping with a boot on my foot. With the line of thinking being that I get the most pain in the morning because my fascia and achilles aren’t being stretched out all night. (my foot’s in a relaxed state while sleeping) Then when I try to walk on them in the morning … boom. Tons of pain.

Unfortunately, sleeping with a boot on all night can be very uncomfortable. Sleeping with your foot flexed is a very unnatural position. Plus, it did nothing to solve the root problem. I didn’t have plantar fasciitis because my feet weren’t being flexed all night. Humans did not evolve sleeping for thousands of years with their feet flexed at night so their fascia didn’t flare up!

plantar fasciitis boot — Some Dr’s genuinely think this is what is necessary to heal plantar fasciitis.

Rolling out the fascia

I also tried rolling my fascia out with lacrosse balls whenever I was sitting down at a desk. I’d always have a ball in my backpack, so in college when I was studying or later when I was at work I’d roll out my feet for hours on end. This felt AMAZING. Nothing feels better when your fascia are inflamed than massaging them with a hard ball. But of course, this didn’t fix the root cause either.

roll out fascia with lacrosse ball — This offered me a lot of pain relief. But doesn’t treat the root cause.

Stretching my Calves

I read online that tight calves could cause more strain on your achilles, and in turn your fascia. Anytime I’d do stairs (often, I went to a college that was situated on a massive hill) I’d spend a few extra minutes on them stretching out my calves. This felt AMAZING and tight calves and achilles are definitely part of the problem when it comes to plantar fasciitis – but as we’ll get to, as soon as I put my shoes back on I was destroying my feet.

calf stretch on stairs — I would stretch my calves whenever I encountered stairs (every day)

What doctors get wrong

If you bring your plantar fasciitis to a doctor and ask what you should do about it, you’ll get a lot of what I just wrote above. These are temporary pain management techniques.

rolling out your fascia
sleeping with a boot to keep your fascia elongated
insoles with more arch support
ice your fascia
etc

Unfortunately, none of these “treatments” address the root cause of the problem, which honestly is the problem with 99% of modern medicine. These may give you temporary pain relief, but they will not get rid of your plantar fasciitis.

See my post on dermatologists here.

Plantar Fasciitis is not genetic.

This podcast changed my thinking on everything to do with foot health. (Peter Attia & Courtney Conley – a leading researcher in foot and ankle health) I highly recommend you listen if you’re struggling with foot pain.

You did not get plantar fasciitis by chance. It is not normal for human fascia to become inflamed. You got this for a variety of lifestyle factors that you can easily fix.

tarahumara born to run — the tarahumara run with a sheet of rubber/leather beneath their feet. but you have plantaar fasciitis because you don’t have enough arch support…

Your shoes are weakening your feet

For one, your shoes probably have a drop. Meaning the heel of your shoe is above the ball of your foot. The average drop on a Nike shoe can be anywhere from 10-15 mm.

Humans did not evolve with shoes on. We evolved walking barefoot, and eventually wore very minimalistic shoes which were really just to protect the bottoms of our feet. The problem with this “drop” in 99% of shoes is that it shortens our achilles, which puts more pressure on the fascia, causing it to become shortened.

Second, the shoes you’re wearing are probably pretty narrow, forcing your feet and toes into an unnatural shape. You want shoes with a wide toe box to allow your toes to spread out. If you compare humans feet who live in modern society vs hunter gatherers or tribesmen, the first thing you’ll notice is how small and weak our feet look. Their toes are spread out and strong. Ours are narrow and weak.

hunter gatherer feet — this is what feet used to look like. toes bigger and spread out. modern shoes are crushing our toes and feet.

Basically, shoes make your feet weak. They put pressure on places that humans feet haven’t felt pressure over 100s of thousands of years of evolution. They also greatly restrict your feet. Over time, this can cause a lot of foot problems.

What you should do

The best thing for your feet is barefoot. Try to walk around your house and outside barefoot as much as possible. Your shoes have made your feet weak – you need to strengthen them. Going barefoot is the most effective and natural way to do this.

When you do wear shoes, get some that are zero-drop and that have a wide toe box. See this clip. I switched to barefoot shoes, and my foot pain slowly subsided within months. I’ve been wearing barefoot shoes for about 5 years now and I could never go back to a traditional shoe. When I put on a normal shoe with a drop and a narrow toe-box my feet start hurting within a few minutes.

Change your surfaces as much as possible

Walking around on cement or asphalt all day certainly doesn’t help. Our ancestors definitely did not walk on surfaces this hard or forgiving … ever. They also didn’t walk on surfaces as flat and uniform as we do. Walking on flat surfaces puts pressure on the same parts of our feet, over and over again. This never would have happened thousands of years ago.

If you can, spend less time on sidewalks, asphalt, and concrete, and more time on the natural earth – think dirt, sand, grass, etc. Vary the muscles and tendons in your feet that are getting stressed.

What Shoes Should You Get?

I wrote a whole post on my barefoot shoe recommendations. There are a TON of barefoot shoe companies that have popped up in the last 5 years or so. It doesn’t matter too much which one you choose, so long as there is zero-drop and a wide toe box.

With this being said, here is what I would recommend.

Best Overall – Vivo Barefoot – More expensive, but durable and worth the money.
Best Looking – Flux Footwear – Look like normal shoes, but durability problems and not AS minimalist but still good enough. Not a truly wide toe box.
Economical Option – Xero Shoes – These shoes are very minimal and not very good looking, BUT they are zero drop and have a wide toe box and are awesome for your feet.

Lems are often cited as a good transition shoe from traditional to barefoot shoes. They are zero-drop and have a wide toe-box, but have a bit more lift off the ground for people new to barefoot shoes.

ALTRA hiking shoes are similar. They’re zero drop and have a wide toe box, but are pretty lifted off the ground for hiking. Having worn barefoot shoes for years now, I consider these ones to be extremely bulky – they really hurt my feet. But I also know people who are used to traditional shoes and think even the Altras are too minimalist with the zero-drop. It all depends.

vivo barefoot shoes — my favorite barefoot shoes – vivo barefoot

How to Start Wearing Barefoot Shoes

If you are used to wearing normal shoes, you are going to have a hard time adapting to barefoot shoes at first. When I got my first pair of Xero Shoes (Prio) I immediately went on a 30 minute walk – and my feet were FEELING it. Your achilles are not used to being stressed as much as they will be with barefoot shoes, so it’s gonna take some getting used to.

I would recommend starting with 10-15 minutes per day in minimalist shoes and building up from there. Within a year, I was wearing barefoot shoes 100% of the time with no soreness at all, but that definitely wasn’t the case when I started.

To Summarize – Heal Your Plantar Fasciitis

I suffered from plantar fasciitis for 6 years. I tried everything that doctors told me to – with minimal to no luck.
As soon as I started going barefoot and wearing minimalist shoes – everything changed.
To get rid of your pain – STRENGTHEN your feet by going barefoot more often, and wearing minimalist shoes if you have to wear shoes.
Get yourself a pair of barefoot shoes like Vivo or Xero and EASE into them. Start with 10-15 minutes per day and build up from there. (see my recs here)
Don’t listen to Dr’s who say you have bad “foot genetics” or that you have “flat feet” or “low arches” or any other nonsense like this.
Humans evolved over 100s of thousands of years, walking around all day barefoot or at the very least with a minimalist bottom for protection – its important you do the same thing. (read the famous book Born to Run if you want more info on this)

Lastly, I’ll leave you with the plantar fasciitis recommendations (picture below) from the “brilliant” doctors at Johns Hopkins University. You can take their suggestions and treat the symptoms for temporary pain relief, or, you can head straight the root cause. Your choice.

johns hopkins plantar fasciitis recommendations

Sam