Welcome to the

SPC Archives

Find related articles and learn more about our process at SPC.

Search

Tag: walking

When and where you feel foot pain during walking is key for diagnosis

When and where you experience foot pain during walking is diagnostic. This means we can figure out the pain generator. That is a large list. It can be the fat pad, your fascia (the most common, incorrect diagnosis), plantar intrinsics (muscles on the bottom of the foot which is primarily the flexor digitorum brevis, abductor hallucis, and abductor digiti minimi), the flexor hallucis longus, the tibial nerve, the medial or lateral plantar nerve, the calcaneus, the talus, the bones of the midfoot and forefoot, the foot and ankle joints, ligaments, the hallux (big toe), or the little toes. It does not include referral into the foot from your low back or hip. With the foot, we know when the different structures that can cause pain are loaded during walking and we know that the location of pain is likely where the pain generator resides because of the higher receptor field

Read More »

The Modified Low Dye

A physical therapy band-aid for foot pain during running Running-related injuries are commonly seen for physical therapy at Smith Performance Center. Unlike some of the advice, you may hear, stopping can prolong the problem.  Rest does not automatically equal recovery or resolution of an injury.  A nice tool to consider learning is the modified low dye.  It can help to reduce foot and lower leg pain while allowing you to continue training. Where is it from? I learned about the modified low dye from Dr. Tom McPoil.  He is faculty at Regis University and was previously faculty at Northern Arizona.  He is an expert on the foot and wrote an article on tissue stress theory that still impacts my practice today.  The purpose of the modified low dye in a physical therapy program is to limit stresses to the tissue of the lower leg and foot to allow desensitization. In

Read More »

Knee Pain and Physical Therapy

Knee pain is a big issue with numerous treatments to consider. We believe that physical therapy is a great way to resolve your knee pain, but not all physical therapists treat the same way. Our team suggests that patients with knee pain consider the following: make sure you get a diagnosis, understand your prognosis, develop a treatment plan, and understand the triggers occurring in your day to day. Why isn’t your knee pain going away? You may not remember when you started thinking you had bad knees, but at this point, you start to have an internal debate with yourself about standing up.   Do I really need to go to the bathroom or should I wait? Or maybe for you, you decided to bike now because running hurts. Or you may be waiting to get a total knee arthroplasty because a surgeon told you were too young to have a

Read More »