If you or someone you know suffers from a case of plantar fasciitis, it's highly recommended that you seriously consider getting a deep tissue foot massage.
This is a technique that focuses on the muscle tissues deep in the heel of your foot. With slow and measured strokes using finger pressure, the person performing the massage can efficiently loosen the muscle tissues.
The strokes are usually applied to the calf muscles, heel muscles, fascia, and the section of the foot surrounding the Achilles tendon. The massage essentially targets your foot's flexor and digitorum muscles.
What foot massagers do is follow the direction of the muscle fibers and then apply pressure on them to release tension. This in turn leads to pain alleviation among other important benefits.
How Plantar Fasciitis Develops
The obvious question now is can a foot massage help plantar fasciitis? To answer this question, you need to fully understand what causes the ailment and why it recurs.
Plantar fasciitis is most common among persons between the ages of 40 and 60. This is because some of the factors in the development of the ailment are usually due to the advance of age.
However, this doesn't necessarily mean that younger folks won't be afflicted by the illness.
So how exactly does plantar fasciitis develop? If you are a very active person which means you walk or run a lot, you will likely be more susceptible to the condition.
This is why plantar fasciitis is quite common among runners and other active athletes. It can also occur in individuals who are overweight and those who regularly wear shoes with inadequate support.
There's a long and thick band of tissues called the plantar fascia that runs the length of your foot's sole.
Pain and inflammation can occur if your heel spurs constantly hit the tissues.
Your heel bone gets a lot of unnecessary pressure leading to the inflammation of muscle tissues.
You can usually feel a stabbing pain when you take your first steps in the morning. The morning pain may slowly go away but it can easily recur if the condition is not treated properly.
Is Deep Massage Effective?
In many ways, deep tissue foot massage for plantar fasciitis is a form of neural mobilization exercise.
The goal is to alleviate the heel pain by releasing the tension that has to build up in the muscles of your foot.
This is why the massage involves a lot of applying pressure on the tissues, stretching the posterior calf muscle, and doing physical therapy on the tendons.
Several studies have shown that deep tissue massage is an effective method on how to treat plantar fasciitis.
This is because it borrows techniques from several treatment procedures like myofascial release and physical therapy.
A study by a group of researchers in Israel came up with the conclusion that there is indeed a correlation between deep tissue massage and improvement in plantar fasciitis patients. The study took into account a lot of factors and variables.
When the data were collected and analyzed, it showed that there was enough clinical and statistical information to point out the fact that patients experienced real improvement after going through several sessions of deep tissue massage.
The Effects of Deep Tissue Massage
- It releases muscle tension. As we mentioned earlier, a lot of the reasons why plantar fasciitis develops is because of the build-up of tension in the muscles surrounding the feet. When the muscles are not functioning properly as they should, then they would be more susceptible to inflammation.
- It helps in breaking down scar tissue. This is a lesser-known benefit of deep tissue foot massage because a lot of patients often focus on pain treatment and alleviation. Scar tissue breakdown is very important especially for athletes because the build-up of scar tissues can affect their performances. Too much scar tissues can affect the ligaments and tendons connecting the muscle tissues and bones. When these are strained too often, then plantar fasciitis will likely develop can cause recurring pain.
- It removes muscle toxins. Deep tissue foot massage is similar to good exercise which assists in freeing your body from harmful toxins. You will always feel better after a session even if the session focused on calf massage or variants of it.
- It helps ensure that there's proper circulation of blood and oxygen in your feet. This is very important because unbalanced circulation makes your foot muscles and bones more susceptible to pain and inflammation. Blood and oxygen should be able to freely flow without any constraints. Deep tissue foot massage can help a lot in achieving this.
- It helps in protecting your foot muscles, bones, and tendons from unnecessary injuries. This is why deep tissue massage is becoming a very popular form of sports massage. Many athletes like runners, basketball players, marathoners, and even gymnasts now go through sessions of deep tissue foot massage not only to fix plantar fasciitis issues but to protect themselves from injuries as well.
In a nutshell, deep tissue foot massage is one of the ways how to get rid of plantar fasciitis permanently. Anyone who has experienced a session of the massage can attest to its efficacy.
Of course, as a patient, you can't solely depend on it to treat the pain and inflammation.
You have to go through the sessions in addition to other treatment options like medication or wearing a night splint.
With the treatments, you no longer have to suffer from unbearable pain, swelling, inflammation, or very tight calves caused by plantar fasciitis.
Final Words
The bottom line here is that deep tissue foot massage is both efficient and effective in treating plantar fasciitis.
And as we mentioned earlier, there's scientific proof that there's indeed a correlation between massage and improvements in the condition of a patient.
There are several ways how you can get the massage. One, you can get the services of a massage professional. One, you can try to do the massage yourself.
Or three, you can get a plantar fasciitis massage machine. Variations of this machine are already available in the market.
