Sometimes I just have to take my own advice! Believe it or not, this does not always happen.
I’ve been nursing a very sore area right in front of my right heel, even self-treating it with dermaneuromodulation techniques (fantastic pain relief to treat inflamed and tethered nerves through gentle traction on the skin). The pain keeps coming back. So I ignored it and jumped some more. Or warmed it with a heating pad. Or rested it. No go.
Lately I have been doing more jumping in my self training, and went to ballet class last night which really flared this up. Suddenly I had the ‘Doh!” moment”: this feels more like a tendinitis/tendinosis issue, so why not try treating it as such the same way I would a client’s tennis elbow or achilles tendinitis: slow and targeted exercise that works through deceleration with loading, aka ‘loading while stretching’ or eccentric contraction.
I prefer 2-1, working into the concentric phase of a movement with two feet or two hands, then decelerating through the eccentric contraction with one foot or hand. Two feet to rise over the stair step on straight legs, one foot to descend slowly and smoothly. A jerky descent tells me I have lost coordination through that movement and need to work on it a bit. If it is really bad, I do one to one, as in, use the unaffected side, then decelerate through the sore one. That method got e through the worst of my tennis elbow times, when I could barely use my right arm.
So..I will need to baby this foot a little bit, jump wise, but am confidant that this targeted exercise plus my own peripheral nerve self treatment plus an upcoming visit to an Advanced Rolfer™ in Fort Collins next week to help me sort out why I am shortening so much on my right side further up the chain of fascia, joint action, sacro/pelvic mobility, organ restriction, cranial bone restriction or whatever. But I can do this self-care part, and am excited!!