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Everything is Connected! Athletic Therapy Success Story

   Tuesday, January 9, 2018

   Competitive Edge

If you have ever heard your Therapist say “Everything is connected”, and you had a hard time believing them, here is a client success story that proves just that.

A couple weeks ago I had a client come in with an old plantar fasciitis injury that had become re-aggravated. This injury occurs when the fascia at the bottom of your foot becomes irritated due to a multitude of reasons. This client had also been getting headaches regularly. The first appointment we focused mainly on treating her foot including releasing the fascia under the foot itself. She came back the following week and told me that it was even worse! Treating directly in the problem area even gently was too much for her and her injury became more irritated than before. In the weeks following we focused on other areas including her hips and pelvis, legs and even into the back of her neck working on her sub-occipital muscles.

Throughout the following weeks we worked on getting the musculature in her legs and hips working properly and assuring they weren’t holding any unnecessary tension. We also did releases for her diaphragm and her sacrum. Some weeks she would come in with tension in her shoulders and we would work on the back of her neck and her upper traps.

After 6 treatments of not even touching her foot, her plantar fasciitis had completely healed and her headaches had improved as well!!

The reason that treating what seemed like irrelevant parts of the body helped her plantar fasciitis is because of a fascial chain system that runs from the bottom of the feet up the back of the body and ends by wrapping from the back of the head around to the forehead. The name of this chain is called the Superficial Back Line. This fascial chain begins at the plantar fascia on the underside of the foot which attaches onto the Achilles tendon, up through the calves and hamstrings and then into the erector spinae of the back and ends at the head where it runs from the sub-occipital muscles over the back of the head and ends at the forehead.

If any part of this chain is tight, problems can show up at any section along the entire chain. This is why rolling the bottom of your feet can help with tension headaches and working on this clients hamstrings, pelvis and posterior neck corrected the symptoms she was getting at the bottom of her feet.

So next time your Therapist tells you that your injury is linked to other parts of your body or is treating an area that seems unrelated to your injury… don’t think they are crazy because EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED!!

 

 

 

 

If you are struggling with Plantar Fasciitis, (or any injury for that matter!) that just won’t seem to respond to respond to local/ direct treatment- come on in and see Brodie. She will help you connect the dots and locate the true root cause or your pain! What have you got to lose?

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