The most common foot pain is plantar fasaciitis. The plantar fascia is located on the sole of your foot and this can become dysfunctional with changes in loading without long enough rest periods for your body to adapt to the new load. Examples of this include: increasing running distance and/or speed. Spending more time on your feet such as with a change in your occupation from a sitting based to standing or active one. Changing your shoes and having less support for your feet, including wearing heels more often. Poor foot biomechanics involving over pronation can be a cause of plantar fasciitis. Strengthening and balance exercises can help to resolve it. Off the shelf or podiatrist prescribed orthotics may also be helpful in some cases. Manual therapy and extracorporeal shock wave therapy work well to resolve plantar fasciitis.
Another tendinopathy in the foot is peroneus longus and brevis tendinopathy. This is pain on the lateral side of your foot and is usually associated with increased training, poor foot biomechanics and proprioception. Relative rest, manual therapy, gradual increase in loading and extracorporeal shock wave therapy will help to resolve your tendinopathy.
Stress fractures are most common in the metatarsal bone above your second and third toes. They are usually associated with an increase in repetitive loading, changed sport training, change in shoe supportiveness, and inefficient foot biomechanics such as over-pronation. The main treatment is to stop loading the fracture for a period of weeks and then gradually increasing the loading again.
