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Stop Foot Pain While Walking: Heel, Arch, Or Forefeet
- chelsie462
- 1 day ago
- 11 min read
This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in July of 2024. For the original video, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egYc6GE05BQ
Brad: Walking is one of the best activities you can do for exercise as we age. However, there's one big problem that commonly causes people not to walk, and that is foot pain.
Mike: So we're going to cover five common causes of foot pain and give you some remedies.
Brad: Five different remedies actually.
Mike: So some of the common problems we're going to talk about today include heel and arch pain, commonly caused by plantar fascitis.
Brad: And I'm also going to give the forefoot pain here. One of the common ones is Morton's neuroma, which I have, as well as bunions on the side of the foot by the big toe, typically.
Mike: And the last thing we're going to talk about is hammer toe, which can be very problematic for some people, including Bob.
Brad: Yeah, absolutely, let's get to it. These are things to deal with. Now, the solutions and the remedies that we're offering here and going to show you are from experts in the field. Number one is Dr. Ray McClanahan. He's a podiatrist and he has excellent success with his patients. He's cut down his surgeries on feet by, I believe it's over 50% as a result of some of the remedies we're going to show you. And then also, who is it?
Mike: Rick Olderman, who is a physical therapist and a friend of ours.
Brad: Right, now we're going to show some of the highlights of their treatment that we think are most effective. If you want to get into the details, you can go to YouTube and see the videos as well as podcasts for complete details. Let's get onto the first one. We're going to cover plantar fasciitis first, probably the most common one. Then we're going to get into the other pathologies. Now, one of the big symptoms that happens with plantar fasciitis is getting out of bed and putting weight on your foot, it's very painful. So what you'll want to do, before you get out of bed, this is my painful foot, we want to do an actual massage and stretch on the foot. It's very simple, you can simply use your thumbs and you can work the fascia, which goes from the heel up to the toes, and we're just going to do some circular motions. And you want to get in deep, this is not a superficial massage. Your thumbs will get tired, and that means you're getting deep enough. Now, I like splaying, where you pull the tissue apart and get in there deep so you can feel it. Oftentimes, the sore spot is at the base of the heel. If that's tender, stay away from it.
Brad: If you can work it a little bit, go ahead, and then also stretching the toes back can be beneficial and really get a nice stretch, because that does go directly to the plantar fascia. There we go, and that is critical. Then you can get up and put your shoes on and walk around. We have a little more information on that in a second.
Mike: Another option for massaging your plantar fascia is to sit down in a chair and grab a ball of sorts. I actually have a spiky massage ball here. These are like $5 to $10, you can find them in most stores. You can use a golf ball, lacrosse ball, massage ball, whatever you have. A tennis ball might be a little soft. It might be okay for early on, but you want something a little more aggressive for later. So simply place it on the floor and roll back and forth. You will find some tender spots in your legs. Now, personally, the larger the circumference of the ball, the less it can really dig in there. If I use a golf ball, say, I can really get in there. That's also way more firm. Go into the arches, wherever you feel it. You can start with gentle pressure if you are very tender, and over time, lean forward and put more on there.
Brad: Now, we are going to talk about using a massage gun. A lot of people have these nowadays. That's going to be more at the end, so if you want to learn about that, hold on with us. The next thing is if you experience a lot of pain out of bed when you put weight on it, and you kinda limp a little bit, and after a while it loosens up, the thing that you can do is go and use a night splint. Mike's going to talk about that, he's got personal experience with it.
Mike: So the night splint is a good option. It's actually a splint you wear on your ankle at night when you're sleeping, as long as you can handle it. Typically, when we are sleeping, if you look at my left leg here, oftentimes people are plantar flexed or their toes are pointing away from them.
Mike: Now, when this happens, your calf muscles shorten, which pulls on your Achilles, which can actually shorten and pull on your plantar fascia. It is all one connected system there. So if you have a night split on, you could see my foot is more in a neutral position.
Mike: This will prevent that shortening from happening. Thus, when you get up, typically in the morning, you're not going to have that pain in your plantar fascia, and you can start walking right away. Now, when you put these on, you'll notice I'm in a neutral position. You don't wanna pull it so hard that you're actually feeling a stretch because you're not going to be able to sleep, and it's going to get uncomfortable. Oftentimes, when people wear these at night, at first, you're probably not going to be able to wear them the whole night. You will wake up and it'll probably be a little bit stiff because your foot isn't used to being in that position for that long. So, a good suggestion Rick has is if you happen to wake up in the middle of the night or use the restroom, when you come back, try to put it on and wear it because it's more important to have it on when you wake up than the first half of the night.
Brad: Good, good point. Alright, let's go down to the next point. We're now going to do the Morton's neuroma, bunions, and that type of thing. Let's go. Now, footwear is really critical, and that's what Dr. Ray McClanahan covers in detail. As a matter of fact, when he has a patient in with foot problems, he'll have them get appropriate footwear, or he will not work with them if they refuse to do that. That's how important it is, and the big thing is how wide the toebox is. In other words, your forefoot needs to have enough room so it can splay out as opposed to getting pinched together, and actually, the toes being pushed together in that pointy formation. And you'll see exactly what we mean. Here we have our traditional shoe, and then the wide toe box shoe. Can you hold onto that, Mike? Look at the shoe on the left, it points together. Your toes are actually getting pushed in together. The one on the right allows the toes to splay out, have room to work, and do what they need to do. We actually cut them open here so you can have a better view of what it actually looks like inside the toe box.
Mike: Now, most of these shoes also come with what they call zero drop. So that means the heel of the foot to the forefoot is the same distance off the ground. If you look at these old common shoes, you can see that the heel is more elevated than the forefoot. This can actually shorten your calf muscle and cause issues like plantar fasciitis, as well as tight calves.
Brad: Can we show them this?
Mike: You can show them with that. You can see that the level with the first cutout is consistent. In the second cutout, you can clearly see that the heel is more elevated compared to the forefoot.
Brad: Now, don't get too concerned about this. I've actually tried these minimalists, and I need more cushion because of my Morton's neuroma. So that is an option to get more cushion as well as getting the wide forefoot room.
Mike: So I have two different pairs of zero drop. However, one pair is very minimalist. There's not much cushioning between the ground. I only walk in these, I don't do much else. These are my running shoes. These are technically zero drop, but you can see there's much more cushioning. If you're new to this, this is something I would suggest getting more cushioning. Just make sure it says zero drop as well.
Brad: Right. When it comes down to it, make sure whatever shoe you have, get it wide in the toe box so your feet can move around. Now let's talk about the cost of some of these shoes. Mike, can you talk about the ones that you wear?
Mike: So these are Altra shoes, these are running shoes. These cost more like 130, $150. I am putting a lot of miles on my legs right now, so I want the cushioning. I'm willing to pay for it.
Brad: But I'm only going to walk.
Mike: However, there are other cheaper brands, especially if you're new to trying them out. These are called Whitin, they're just an Amazon brand. They were like $40. This is what I first bought because I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, or Brad has another cost-effective option as well.
Brad: Right, I like to wear the Crocs. They're more expensive now, they used to be so cheap. I don't, 50, $60, but they're great. A lot of toe room, easy to get in and out of, great for the weather. If they're wet, they clean easily. So this is what I wear pretty much all summer, in the fall, and in the spring, around the house.
Mike: Ray McClanahan actually suggested those himself.
Brad: That's right, you can't go wrong if he says it as well as they're comfortable for you. Okay, now I can personally vouch for the comfort from my Morton's neuroma. If you happen to have that, it's very painful when you have a tighter shoe. When you open it up, it makes a big difference in the comfort level, and we do have a video on Morton's neuroma that I can give you, even some more tricks that you can do at home. No cost to get rid of that pain. Now we're going to talk about massage guns.
Mike: Specifically massaging the bottom of your foot and how you can do it with different devices.
Brad: That's right, I mentioned that earlier in the video. Okay, let's talk about these reciprocating massage guns. They can be really effective and save your fingers and thumbs from doing a manual massage, as I showed earlier. Now, I like to use a smaller massage gun like the Q2 Mini Massage Gun. If you're heavier, have bigger feet, and you're a larger person, you could go up to the bigger size C2 Massage Gun. But I'm going to use a round head here, and I'm going to show you the big advantage. Both of these massage guns come with a round head. They also have an airhead; it's softer, which may be a good option. First, this is a Q2 mini. It is a Bob and Brad massage gun. It's a wonderful gun, I really like it, and they've been around for years. The time test passed. Now, I can work straight in, but that's usually what I don't do. I go at an angle, and that actually gives a cross-friction massage to the plantar fascia. And I'll work up, now that painful spot, which is right there, I'll work around it, okay? If you go on it and it hurts a lot, you're just irritating it. Wait till it starts to feel better, but you can work on that there.
Brad: If you're using the larger gun, you may want to put the airhead on it, it's a little softer, and work that. And that might be too aggressive because you really can't do a cross-friction massage with the airhead. But you do want to work the calf muscles because if they get tight, as we mentioned earlier, that will tighten up the stress on the plantar on the bottom of your foot. So keeping the muscles here loose is also critical with plantar fasciitis, and it's going to help some of the other problems we talked about as well. Work the calf muscle, and that's where I like that airhead; it works out well. The round head is going to be a little more aggressive unless you turn it sideways. Work all the way from the Achilles tendon up to the bottom of the knee, and it'll work out well and save your hands.
Brad: Now, if you want to global massage to your foot and really comfortable feeling at the end of the day or whenever you'd like, we've got this particular massage device.
Mike: So this is actually a foot massager. This is the Bob and Brad Lite Foot Massager. You just turn it on, let it run to the settings you like. It has nice air compression, as well as kneading underneath the bottom of your foot, and it also has some heat options. They come with a remote, and there are a couple of different sizes, so just pick what works for you. They do fit up to a size 12 men's foot, so as long as you're under that, it should work.
Brad: And we do have, for your convenience, more detailed videos from Ray McClanahan and Rick Olderman. What are they?
Mike: You could check them out, they are "What Type of Shoes Are Best for Foot Health?" and "Fix Plantar Fasciitis Fast - Foot Pain Gone (50+)."
Brad: That's right, the one from Dr. McClanahan is a really nice podcast if you want to do that, and I think we have some podcasts with Rick, too, don't we?
Mike: Yes, we have plenty of those.
Brad: There you go, so driving down the road, listen to it. Watch it at home on your, I don't know, you can do it on your cell phone if you want. That's just too small for me, I can't see those little figures.
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