10December 2021
♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪ ♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪ – Hi folks, I'm Bob
Schrupp, physical therapist. – Brad Heineck, physical therapist. – Together we are the most
famous physical therapists on the internet. – In our opinion, of course, Bob. – This video is part of a
series on plantar fasciitis. This particular video is called The Five Things Anyone
With Plantar Fasciitis Should Do Every Morning. There's also a printout that
you can find on our website. – Sure. – All right, the tell-tale
signs of plantar fasciitis is pain after rest.
And the reason for that is, the belief is that there's tears that have occurred. Yes, in the plantar fascia,
and they start to heal, they begin to half heal overnight or when you're sittin' in your chair, you stand up and start to walk and it breaks them open again. – Right. – And the process has
to start all over again. – Overnight the fascia actually
tightens up a little bit with time, and then that quick stretch when you put weight on it, it's painful. – Yeah, and that's the sign
that everybody mentions when they have plantar fasciitis. These are the five things
you're going to want to do. Two of them for sure, if
you have a lot of time. I should say three of
them for sure, two of them if you don't have time you can always– – You're going have to set your alarm for five minutes earlier.
– Yeah, set your alarm. So the first one is, so
remember the plantar fascia extends from the heel all
the way up into the toes.
You want to stretch this
before you even get out of bed. So what you're gonna do, is
you're gonna grab all the toes kind of with your hand like this and pull it forward like that. So I'm bending the ankle,
and I'm bending the toes, and I'm stretching the fascia. You can probably see that even. Can you see that, Mike? Yeah, you can probably
see that the fascia's being stretched that way. So you know, I'm not sure what I recommended on the sheet for how many seconds to do this. Why don't you look it up, Brad? – [Brad] Okay. – I'll go on, go ahead
and do the next one. Oh I'm sorry, I have it Brad, nevermind.
Five times and hold for 20 seconds. Five times you're gonna do this, hold for 20 seconds. – Be gentle on the first one, it might be painful.
– Right. Right, now, if you're in a
chair and you've been sitting for awhile, you're gonna
wanna do the same thing. You're gonna want to stretch
it before you start walking. – Right. All right, the next one, Brad you're gonna show the massage. – So if you're in bed, you're just gonna– – [Bob] You can do it a number of ways. – Yeah, typically, probably
the best way is just bring your foot up like this and, you know, as long as
you can get in this position and I'm gonna show what we call the splain and you just thumbs together
and then you spread out like this and stretching the
skin, you're really pushing in.
Can you get into that, Mike,
and see what's going on? – [Bob] If you can't do it laying down, you can do it on the edge of
the bed like I was doing it. – Sure, yep. – [Bob] And generally, the
sore spot is right in here. So, Brad's, often you want
to work this area first and if you can tolerate working this area, but you may not even
be able to handle that the first couple times. – So we go into the– – [Bob] Yeah, more of a circular. – I like to use my knuckles
just because it's easier. – [Bob] You can use your
thumbs or your knuckles. – It's like this, the
thumb knuckle, you'll know once you work it a little bit
'cause if you just go like this that works too, but
your fingers will get tired. 'Cause you gotta push in, you gotta work the tissues under the skin.
Get into that fascia. We wanna increase
circulation, stretch it out. All those things help the healing process. – [Bob] Again, with time as a factor, we usually say one to two minutes. You can do it longer, obviously, but– – Typically your hands or
fingers will get tired. – Right, Brad, while
you're in that position, do you want to go ahead
and show the next one? Now this, again, I'd like
you to be doing this one but if you can't do it every time, you can't do it every time.
So go ahead and do a calf, a calf stretch and a hamstring stretch at the same time, basically, you can. – You can use a belt, that's handy, typically in the bedroom. – Yep, look how he's going
around the forefoot there. – There we go and I'm stretching it. – The calf, and he's
stretching the hamstring there. – And if I straighten my knee, you even get a better hamstring. And depending on your nerve loss, you may get a little
bit of a nerve stretch.
That's a different pain. – [Bob] So 30 seconds to a minute. Here's a towel, Brad, or
a sheet might work better. There you go. – There we go. – So you're gonna have to
have these things, obviously, by the bed before you even start. Otherwise, you're gonna walk
and you're gonna break it open before you even, before
the day's even started.
All right, next one, Brad,
this is probably a better one to do off the edge of the
bed, would be, basically, just to do the alphabet. This is gonna warm your
foot up, warm the ankle up. Brad, you mentioned before, you take a, it's like you've taped
a marker to the big toe? – Yeah, imagine you taped a
sharpie or a piece of chalk to your big toe and there's a blackboard, whiteboard, whatever
in front of your foot, and you're gonna make a capital A. Like you're drawing it,
cross it, and then a B. The only reason we do
that is because you get a complete range of motion with your foot and it gives you something to think about. It's just a really nice way to get range of motion on the foot, which does stretch that
fascia a little more as well, preparing it for, and you're not gonna
do the whole alphabet.
You'll probably get up
to C or D or E or F. – Warm it up a little bit. All right, the final thing now. The first two things
we call them quick wins because we try to come up with things that give you the most benefit for
the least amount of effort. This number five is also a quick win. Basically, before you get out of bed you're gonna want to make
sure you put some shoes on or some slippers on. Especially slippers with
some good arch support. – Right, not the flat ones
that just have a little fluff on there to keep your feet warm. – Because, and this is
even, people have asked, "In the middle of the night?" Yes, in the middle of the night. Now, in the middle of the
night, you're probably not gonna do all the stretches, but you can stretch it and
actually break it open again in the middle of the
night and there you go, you're behind already. – It's nice to have a pair, a nice slip-on slippers
that are easy to put on.
– You could even take an old
pair of tennis shoes that still have pretty good arch support, take the laces out of it and
it'll be just easy to slide on, and you're good to go. I just had a patient right now, Brad, that I've had to recommend this. And this is the same that's true, again, if you're working in your office, or maybe even driving for two hours, before you get out of your car make sure you're gonna have good arch support, but also, you
might do the stretch before you even get out of the car.
– You can do it with your shoe on. – Yep, you can do it with your shoe on. – Hopefully, you've got
a flexible enough sole that will allow the stretch. – All right, if you want to
watch the rest of the series go to BobandBrad.com, it's
under the plantar fascia, free plantar fascia program. – There you go. – Thanks. (upbeat music).