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Lead Stories: Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Q&A: What can I do about pain that goes up my leg from the back of my heel?

Posted September 5th, 2007 at 1:15 PM by Martha Jones

Section: Running & Training, Injury & Rehab, Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab

You’re describing Achilles tendinitis, pain the large tendon that extends from in the back of your heel to your calf muscle. It hurts most when you get up in the morning and when you start to walk or run. It will heal only if you stop running and find another sport that doesn’t hurt when you do it, such as cycling, swimming, or pulling on a rowing machine.

The Achilles tendon is made up of thousands of individual fibers, like a rope with thousand of strands. The fibers can be broken if you apply a force greater than their inherent strength. No medicines hasten healing.

As soon as the tendon stops hurting, doctors usually prescribe strengthening exercises, but you have to exercise against greater resistance to become strong and strong resistance prevents healing.

If you want to return to running or jogging, start out by . . .
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Increasing Stride Length

Posted May 18th, 2007 at 12:30 PM by Jim Fortner

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips

Jim Fortner is a weekly, guest contributor. Make sure to also check out his own personal running and advice site: “Jim2’s Running Page”.

Stride length should not be increased by reaching your foot forward. That only moves your foot plant point in front of your center of gravity and causes a braking action, slows you down and adds to injury-causing stresses. The desired ways to increase stride length are to increase the time your foot is planted on the ground, thus delaying the push-off point, and a stronger push-off, which will increase forward momentum.

I believe there are four primary ways to do this. One is to increase leg strength, which Norman suggested and you have explained probably isn’t what’s holding you back. The other three ways are through improving running form, speed work and stretching.

Running form - The key here is to keep your center of gravity forward, especially your hips.
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