Consider this: When structural engineers design buildings meant to absorb and withstand the impact of an earthquake, they avoid rigidity at all costs. Buildings and structures capable of weathering tremendous impact and force must be strong–and flexible.

The human body is no different.

Tight or inflexible muscles, tendons, and ligaments are all at risk for injury, strain, and reduced ability to withstand the tremendous forces they’re asked to absorb each day through running, walking, and other physical activity.

Let’s explore the specific risks of low foot or ankle mobility, and how you can improve your mobility:

Are Foot Mobility and Heel Pain Connected?

The foot and ankle work together in a complicated dance of muscles, ligaments, tendons, and bones. When one part of the foot or ankle is compromised, the rest of the foot feels it!

Your foot’s ability to properly rotate, flex, and respond to different surfaces and movements has a direct impact on your toes and arches. If your foot mobility is restricted, it’s likely that you’ll eventually begin to notice heel pain as well.

How are foot mobility and heel pain connected? There are several reasons foot mobility and heel pain are bedfellows. For one thing, when you have limited foot mobility, other important muscles and ligaments in the foot atrophy and become tighter from disuse. Tight muscles and ligaments aren’t as effective at absorbing the impact of physical activity or supporting surrounding tissue, leaving the arch of the foot at greater risk of being strained and damaged.

Reduced foot mobility can also mean negative changes for your gait or increased pronation, both of which can eventually lead to heel pain and plantar fasciitis.

How to Improve Foot and Ankle Mobility

If your foot and ankle mobility aren’t what they should be, remember that “the foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone.” By working to improve mobility in the ankle, foot, toes, and calves, you’ll strengthen and fortify your entire ambulatory system.

Reduced mobility can be caused my injury or trauma, wearing shoes that don’t fit properly and restrict a healthy range of motion, or simply genetics.

It’s important to determine the most likely cause of your compromised foot and ankle mobility, to properly address the issue. If your foot or ankle mobility is compromised because of a previous injury, work with your physical therapist or doctor to avoid re-injury or trauma to the affected area. If you’re wearing shoes that don’t fit properly, restrict your stride, or don’t offer enough support, make some healthy changes in your choice of footwear in tandem with your efforts to improve your foot and ankle mobility.

For most people, starting a regimen of stretching, self massage, and orthotics are key to improving mobility simply and effectively at home:

Stretching: Stretching the calves, ankles, toes, and arches will improve muscle tone, lengthen short, tight muscles and tendons, and allow for a greater range of motion over time.

Self-massage: Using a mobility ball, your hands, or a household tool like a golf ball or rolling pin, you can relieve pain, improve blood circulation, and warm up tight muscles and ligaments in the foot prior to stretching.

Orthotics: If compromised foot and ankle mobility are causing heel pain, wearing orthotic inserts can provide a great deal of pain relief and support to your arch while you work to improve your mobility.

Stretches for Improving Foot and Ankle Mobility

What’s the best way to stretch to improve your foot and ankle mobility? You have plenty of good options! Find a few stretches you like that address your unique mobility concerns, and then incorporate them into your routine. How diligent you are in stretching daily will have as much of an impact on your foot and ankle mobility as which stretches you choose:

Check out these stretches for the toes, calves, ankles, and arches for a few ideas to get you started! In general, you’ll want to hold each stretch for between 15-30 seconds, and repeat each stretch 10-15 times, once or twice a day, but pay attention to your body and take your unique situation into consideration!

Wall and Book Stretch for the Achilles Tendon and Calf

Staircase Stretch for the Heel, Ankle, and Calf

Other Foot and Ankle Mobility Videos

Pebble Stretch for Toe Strength
Water Bottle Stretch for the Plantar Fascia
Wall Squat Calf Stretch

Your feet and ankles are true marvels of engineering, and capable of absorbing a great deal of impact and stress. Think of them as the pillars and foundation that support your body. And by keeping them strong–and flexible–you’re taking strides to keep your whole body healthy and active!

While restless leg syndrome (also known as RLS) and plantar fasciitis can certainly occur at the same time, the evidence for a connection between the two conditions is somewhat elusive and mostly anecdotal–which makes sense, since RLS is a poorly understood and somewhat mysterious (but very real) condition itself.

If you suffer from either plantar fasciitis or restless leg symptoms, it can be helpful to understand the reported risk factors leading to the overlap of these two conditions, to help with early detection and intervention.

Plantar Fasciitis and Restless Leg Syndrome

Restless leg syndrome is a condition that affects anywhere between 4 and 30 percent of the US population. The condition causes discomfort or a pins-and-needles sensation and the urge to move the lower legs during periods of inactivity, such as sitting or while lying in bed. Often, the condition gets worse at night and interferes with falling asleep.

Plantar fasciitis, on the other hand, is a condition that impacts the arch of the foot, or more specifically the plantar fascia, a ligament that connects your heels to your toes and helps absorb impact and distribute weight evenly while you walk or move. When this band of tissue becomes strained, inflamed, or overused, plantar fasciitis develops.

It’s worth noting that individuals with restless leg syndrome often experience other foot problems as well, including bunions–and plantar fasciitis.

While the cause of restless leg syndrome is unknown, there is growing support for the theory that RLS is caused by problematic movement patterns, and stress and strain to myofascial trigger points, or muscle knots, in the skeletal muscles of the feet and legs. Some experts believe that the gait changes that often occur alongside plantar fasciitis (to compensate for the damaged fascia) can trigger restless leg syndrome.

Can You Experience Restless Leg Syndrome in the Feet?

While the name “Restless Leg Syndrome” implies that this condition is only felt in the legs, rare cases of RLS can cause movement in the feet or toes.

However, if your symptoms appear in the feet or toes (particularly if the movement is accompanied by pain), you may not have RLS at all. Instead, you may be suffering from a condition called Painful Leg and Moving Toes Syndrome (PLMT).

In PLMT, which researchers believe is closely connected to neuropathy or spinal trauma, sufferers experience movement in the feet, legs, and toes while resting. Unlike RLS, PLMT is characterized by pain (not just discomfort) either before or during the movement. This pain can be sharp, throbbing, burning, cramping, or tingling. Make sure to talk to your doctor about all of your symptoms, for an accurate diagnosis!

Leg Pain and Plantar Fasciitis

If you have plantar fasciitis and you’re dealing with leg pain that isn’t accompanied by movement, you’re not alone.

Gait abnormalities or tight and inflexible muscles in the calves, ankles, and thighs, can all contribute to leg pain that accompanies heel pain. For the most part, improving the alignment of the feet and legs, as well as massage and stretching to help muscles become stronger and more flexible (more on this below!) can significantly improve both your heel pain and your leg pain.

Remember: Your feet and heels don’t work in isolation. All of the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the feet and legs work together to help you take every step. When the arch and heel are struggling, the legs often suffer — and vice versa!

Improving Alignment and Gait to Address Restless Leg Syndrome and Plantar Fasciitis

Some people have found that by improving their movement patterns and gait, their restless leg syndrome improves as well as the fascia and muscles in the legs and feet resume a proper position and heal.

Likewise, by taking steps to properly align and treat strained and damaged ligaments in the fascia, plantar fasciitis can be warded off or treated as well.

Make sure that you are wearing properly fitting shoes that support and cushion your arches, and aren’t too tight. Avoid wearing high heels or shoes that are tight in the toe box.

Wearing orthotic inserts with your favorite pair of shoes can offer a great deal of support and cushioning to a compromised arch, allowing you to walk normally without pain.

Since resting the legs and feet (an important part of healing plantar fasciitis) can be uncomfortable for individuals with restless leg syndrome, it’s especially important to take steps to properly support the ligaments and tissue of the feet.

Massage and Stretching for Restless Leg Syndrome and Plantar Fasciitis

Massage and stretching are two other at-home remedies that appear to improve restless leg syndrome and have been proven to help with plantar fasciitis.

Starting a regular routine of stretching and self-massage with a mobility ball, tennis ball, or even water bottle can strengthen and elongate tight and damaged muscles and ligaments in the feet and legs. Over time, these stretches and massage can break up adhesions, improve circulation, and support proper gait and movement patterns.

Most cases of plantar fasciitis can be resolved at home using the treatments discussed above, including orthotics, stretching, and rest. And while treating restless leg syndrome can feel like guesswork, the good news is that many of the treatments that work for plantar fasciitis also seem to have a positive effect on restless leg syndrome.

If you’ve been suffering from foot pain near the ball of your foot, you could be experiencing metatarsalgia–the medical term for pain and inflammation in the five metatarsal heads, which are located at the base of each toe.

Each of your five toes are connected to a metatarsal bone to help you walk, run, jump, and stand properly by absorbing impact and balancing your weight.

When these metatarsals are compromised, you’ll notice symptoms in the area where the metatarsal heads meet your toe bones–also known as the ball of your foot.

While metatarsalgia can have many causes, the symptoms almost always present as inflammation, pain, numbness, and tenderness in the ball–rather than the arch or heel–of the foot.

Is Your Foot Pain Metatarsalgia?

While it might seem like metatarsalgia would be easy to identify through the hallmark pain in the ball of the foot, when symptoms become severe, the pain may be felt throughout the entire foot.

To diagnose metatarsalgia, your doctor will perform an exam, ask you questions about your activity level and any conditions that may influence your metatarsals, and potentially perform an X-ray to rule out a fracture or bone abnormality.

If you have several of the following symptoms, it’s likely that the pain you’re experiencing is metatarsalgia:

• Pain that is primarily located in the ball of the foot; however, if the pain is severe, it may be difficult to pinpoint.
• Numbness where the toes meet the foot
• Pain that ranges from dull and aching, to sharp pain in the ball of the foot
• Increased pain when you place weight on the foot, stand on tiptoe, or walk barefoot
• Pain that increases, rather than improves somewhat, while walking or moving
• The sensation that you have a small stone or object beneath your foot while you are walking, even while barefoot

Causes of Pain in the Ball of the Foot

Since metatarsalgia is an umbrella term that doctors use to describe pain in the ball of the foot, this condition can have several causes, including the following:

• Genetic abnormalities: Some people simply have longer metatarsal bones. If that’s the case, you’re more likely to develop pain in the ball of your foot, since longer metatarsal bones have a harder time balancing your weight and movements properly.
• The aging process: As we get older, the fatty tissues in our bodies become thinner and sustain more wear and tear. The metatarsals in the ball of your foot are protected by fatty tissue, and as aging wears this tissue down, the ball of your foot is more prone to injury.
• Abnormal arches: Whether your arches or high or flat, an abnormal arch places additional strain on the metatarsals in your feet.
  Obesity: Carrying extra weight places more strain and wear on both the fatty pad in your arches, as well as the metatarsals in the ball of your foot.
• Nerve disorders: Conditions like diabetic neuropathy and neuromas, which impact the nerves in your feet, can lead to pain in the ball of the foot.
• Arthritis: Because the metatarsal heads are joints, conditions like arthritis, a degenerative disease that impacts the joints in your body, can cause pain in your metatarsals.
• Sports and intense exercise: Exercises and sports that include movements that place heavy impact on the ball of the foot, such as soccer, basketball, jogging, or dance, can lead to overuse and injury.
• Improper footwear: Shoes that place a lot of pressure on the ball of the foot (such as high heels), and shoes that don’t provide padding or support for the arch and ball of the foot can place a great deal of strain on the metatarsals.
• Freiberg disease or Sesamoiditis: These two conditions both involve breakage or severe inflammation in the metatarsals.

Treating and Preventing Metatarsalgia

Identifying the cause of your metatarsalgia is the first and most important step in treating it. Since pain in the ball of the foot can have so many root causes, identifying the correct one is vital to preventing additional strain and damage to the metatarsals.

In addition to treating the cause of your metatarsalgia, it’s important to treat the symptoms for both pain relief and to avoid additional damage. Most treatments can be done at home, for little or no cost:

• Stretching and strengthening the muscles and tendons in your Achilles tendon and feet to reduce the amount of pressure on the ball of your foot.
• Wearing properly fitting shoes that cushion and support your arch and the ball of your foot.
• Wearing orthotic inserts to raise your arch to the appropriate height and decrease pressure on the ball of your foot
• Giving yourself adequate rest between forms of exercise or activity that put strain on the ball of your foot
• Icing the ball of your foot for 15-20 minutes, twice each day
• Using NSAIDs as needed to reduce swelling and inflammation
• Maintain a healthy weight through low-impact exercise and a healthy diet to reduce strain on the metatarsals

In many cases, metatarsalgia will resolve on its own with at-home treatment and proper attention. However, if the pain in the ball of your foot is ongoing, severe, or you suspect it may be caused by another underlying condition, it’s very important to see a doctor. In very rare cases, injections or surgery may be recommended as a last resort.

Most of the time, our metatarsals do their job without complaint, successfully helping us balance and move around. But when metatarsalgia strikes, it’s critical to give the ball of your foot the attention and rest it deserves!