Featuring Carl Petersen, BPE, BScPT

Duration: 1 minute, 43 seconds

In tennis plantar fasciitis of the foot can occur because of the quick stops and starts they make on the hardwood floor.

Plantar fasciitis is pain and tension that's felt in the bottom of the foot anywhere from the heel to the toes. If we look at our foot here, this is the top surface, well the bottom surface is the plantar surface. And it really runs from the heels right through to the toes and creates the arch of the foot.

But what can happen is it can become inflamed and irritated because of the pounding motion and the stretching motions that occur as you run around the court. That plantar fascial tissue can stretched, it becomes inflamed either at the heel or inflamed anywhere along the line that that plantar fascial tissue goes, and become quite painful.

When dealing with plantar fasciitis in the foot one of the tools we often use for plantar fasciitis treatment is a ball to do some release work on the tissue on the bottom of the foot. That helps decrease the tension on those tissues so you're not getting as much pull from the heel.

We also prescribe a variety of different warmup exercises and toe scrunching exercises to try and help keep the tissue supple and keep the blood flowing in the tissue and as well make sure that you're doing a variety of different stretches and other exercises to help speed the healing.

If you think you have plantar fasciitis go see your physiotherapist, they can assees to see whether or not you need orthotics to help control the arch, but they'll also give you a variety of different exercises and stretches to help you on your road to recovery

Presenter: Mr. Carl Petersen, Physiotherapist, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Physiotherapist