- It's likely at some point in your adult life,
no matter your age, activity level,
you'll develop heel pain.
A common cause of heel pain is Achilles tendonitis.
It's a preventable condition if you understand
how it develops and what you can do to avoid it.
Your heel bone, the calcaneus, forms the back of your foot,
and provides a base of support for your body
when you're on your feet.
Your Achilles tendon, which is the largest tendon
in your body, connects the muscles in the calf to your heel.
It allows you to raise up on your toes,
and it's the most important tendon
when you're walking, running or jumping.
Over time and with overuse, this Achilles tendonitis
or inflammation of the Achilles tendon can develop.
This causes pain again, when you're trying
to walk, run or jump.
Now let's take a look at how the Achilles tendon
attaches to your heel and provides stability and support.
First of all, here's the leg bone called the tibia.
It sits on a bone called the talus.
The talus sits on a bone called the heel bone,
or calcaneus.
And then hooked off to the front simply are the toes.
In the back is the big calf muscle,
and the calf muscle attaches by means of this
big rope or tendon, the Achilles tendon, to the heel bone.
Sitting in front of this Achilles tendon,
protecting it from these bones, is a little sac
with a little fluid called the bursa sac.
And again here is the skin of the foot and ankle.
So again, we have the tibia, leg bone.
We have the talus that it connects to.
The talus sits on top of the heel bone called the calcaneus.
In the back here we have the calf muscle.
The calf muscle attaches to the heel bone
by the Achilles tendon.
In front of the Achilles tendon is the bursa.
This is the normal parts list.
What happens with Achilles tendonitis?
Again, tibia bone doesn't change.
Talus bone doesn't change.
The heel bone forms a little spur,
often, not always, in the back.
Toes don't change.
Calf muscle gets weakened,
and the Achilles tendon gets inflamed, swollen, and tight.
The bursa sac also swells and gets inflamed.
Again skin.
In summary then, we have weak calf muscle.
We have this condition Achilles tendonitis,
with the Achilles tendon being both inflamed and tight.
We have a bursitis, this bursa sac that gets very inflamed.
Bursitis.
And finally, we often will find a bone spur
on the back of this calcaneus bone.
The main cause of Achilles tendonitis is overuse.
This overuse can occur when the anatomy,
that is the parts list, is normal.
By this I mean you have a normal arch in your foot.
A sudden increase in your fitness program
where you find yourself walking or running more often
can cause overuse and result in an Achilles tendonitis,
even with a normal arch.
Sometimes however, the anatomy,
the parts list, is abnormal.
In this case you might have a flat foot
or a flattened arch.
Some people call this overpronation.
In that case your foot rolls in,
and you put even more stress on your Achilles tendon.
This then again results in overuse and inflammation
of that Achilles tendon,
and once again in Achilles tendonitis.