- Most people make this one common mistake
while treating heel pain.
- Well, I know, I strained my heel,
we gotta stretch it out, don't we?
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- When you have achilles tendon pain,
you actually don't wanna stretch out the calf muscle.
It causes compression on a tendon,
and can increase the degeneration of it.
- Okay, oftentimes heel pain is felt,
and experienced right here where the tendon connects
to the (laughs) calcaneus, thank you, Bob.
And when you stretch it,
compression forces are experienced here,
which actually damages the tissues in the tendon.
So we wanna not stretch and we're gonna show you
an option that's gonna improve this.
Occasionally, there'll be pain experienced up here.
That's a different scenario.
So we're talking about right here
at the achilles tendon junction with the calcaneus.
- If you'd like to learn more
about treating achilles tendon pain,
you can check out the book
How to Treat Your Own Achilles Tendon by Paula Clayton.
- Now, Paula has four different treatment
approach to this problem.
We're gonna go through it and show you the four.
Okay, so the first thing you need to do to take stress off
the area when you're wearing shoes is a heel lift.
Now, here is a actual heel lift that fits
on your heel like this.
You simply put that in your shoe,
and that'll take stress off it,
so you don't have the pain when walking.
There are other options which you don't have to buy,
if you just have some felt,
and you can put it underneath the insert and tape it there.
And that works very good as well.
Actually, I have one right here.
This is for a Morton's Neuroma in a different location,
but you would put this right here at the heel, works good.
A piece of carpet, I've had cut cardboard,
and put cardboard in there so it's the right shape.
You're gonna use this for maybe a couple weeks
until it starts to feel better along
with the other treatments we'll show.
- Second thing you wanna do is try massaging
your calf muscles.
You can do this with a foam roller.
It's good to internally or externally rotate your leg
to get different parts of the calf.
You can do it manually, like Brad is over there.
You can also use a nice rolling stick like this,
which is a little easier if you're stuck in a chair,
or you can't get down to the ground to foam roll.
Just roll different parts of it.
And another option, if you have a massage gun,
use that. - Yeah, yeah.
My hands are getting tired,
so a massage gun does not get tired.
It gets in deeper and they really work well.
I'm using the round head,
which I find is really uncomfortable
on this part of the body.
So yeah, make sure you get a nice reciprocating massage gun.
This is our mini,
this works really well for a lot of people.
Cost is good and it works.
Okay, the third way to address this is cross-fiber,
and a deep cross-fiber.
Mike will tell you all about it and show you.
- So you're gonna dig more into the lower part
of the Achilles tendon right above the calcaneus.
You want to pinch the tendon and you wanna go forward,
and back in this direction, not up and down,
but forward and back towards your toes and away.
You really have to pinch hard,
'cause the achilles tendon is very thick.
- So it may hurt at first, but after about 20 seconds,
you should start feeling numb sensation,
or it's gonna just feel better.
If it gets worse and worse,
it's probably too soon for this treatment.
And then give it a break for a day or two.
- Are we gonna use this on there?
- Oh yeah.
If you get tired, you can use, again, the massage gun,
if you happen to have one.
The round head, again, works good.
You can do the cross friction as long
as you've got a massage gun that reciprocates like this.
And I'm gonna go not in like this, that's beating it up.
We're gonna go this direction.
And you can vary the angle a little bit.
You can put the tendon on slack,
and you'll get in a little deeper.
You'll know, it'll feel right.
If it's really, really painful,
stay away from that area, work upwards,
and then down towards the achilles tendon as tolerated.
Don't get too aggressive.
Boy, this is a good treatment.
I'm enjoying this.
All right, let's go to the next one.
- And the fourth thing to try
is some isometric strengthening.
So with this, you go up on your toes.
If you're weak, you can do both feet at once.
If you have the strength, you can do single leg,
and you're gonna hold it there for 45 seconds.
After you've done 45 seconds,
make sure to rest for two minutes and you're gonna
do this five total times a day.
So remember, when it comes to achilles tendon pain,
try these four exercises to see if they help.
- That's right.
Let us know in the comment section.
If it did help, we'd like to know,
we're all in this together, helping each other out,
feeding back and forth off of each other.
What say you, Mike?
- Goodbye.
- Yeah, we're feeding back and forth.
Goodbye. (laughs)
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