1) Put your injured foot over your opposite leg and pull the toes back towards your shin. You will see the plantar fascia “pop” out. You can massage this area in the direction of the plantar fascia with your thumb.
<insert picture of person pulling toes backwards to stretch the plantar fascia>
2) The plantar fascia can also be stretched by putting your injured leg out straight, pointing your toes to the ceiling and placing a towel or belt around your toes. Then, gently pull the toes towards you. You will feel a stretch in your calf muscle (possibly all the way up to behind your knee) and also in through your plantar fascia. Hold this stretch. Make sure when you are stretching that you don’t pull to the point of pain. Just pull to the point of stretch – you don’t want to do more damage to yourself.
3) Calf Stretches are also crucial when considering your plantar fascia. If you don’t have good range of motion in your ankle (if your calf muscle is tight) this can affect your plantar fascia and make it worse. Make sure you stretch both your plantar fascia and calf muscles. This can be done by putting your one foot behind you, heel on the ground, knee straight and one foot in front of you – far enough in front so that when you lunge forwards your knee doesn’t go in front of your toes. Make sure your back is straight and you are not sticking out your bum. Lunge forwards, keeping the heel on the ground and you will feel a stretch in the back calf muscle. After stretching with a straight leg you can also maintain the same position but this time, bend your back leg. This will capture the second calf muscle that is underneath. Make sure that you don’t bounce in your stretch and only lunge forward to the point of stretch. You don’t want the stretch to hurt or be painful – otherwise you could be doing more damage to your tendon and/or muscle.
<insert picture/video of someone in the correct position for the calf stretch>