WALL PLANKS: Building load tolerance in your plantar fascia

If you're experiencing early morning pain and/or stiffness underneath your heel which slowly warms up as you hobble yourself through your morning, then the chances are that you have plantar fasciitis.  Treatment is multi-faceted, including strategies to lessen the load you are putting through your foot, and increasing the load that your foot can tolerate.  This exercise helps build load tolerance.

Key points to consider - 

• If you find getting into the position where your big toe is on a stretch too painful, try it on a rolled up towel, but REMEMBER TO HAVE THE TOWEL ON A NON-SLIP SURFACE!!
• Try to build load tolerance by taking more and more weight through your sore leg
• Hold the plank for 45s and repeat x4 at least twice a day.  Particular times to do the exercise are prior to an activity that you know will flare things up (like impact exercise or long walks)

THE SPANIARD: Isometric exercise for patellar tendinopathy

If you have been diagnosed with patellar tendinopathy, or "jumper's knee" then this is the best exercise we know of for you.  

Key things to consider - 

• Make sure the pole is solid!!
• Make sure the band is strong, and doesn't have a clip that could undo itself mid-squat
• Make sure your feet are not going to slip on the ground - this could be by having a short band so your toes are abutting the pole, or by wearing seriously non-slip shoes
• Push for an upright torso as your 1st priority
• Progress the difficulty by dropping your hips lower, with the goal of getting your thighs parallel to the ground
• Aim for 4x45s holds of this exercise
• If you have the pole to work from, this exercise is brilliant to use as part of your warm-up pre-training or pre-game

Isometric Hip Tilts: How and Why

If you have pain on the outside of your hip, particularly at night when laying no either the sore side or with the sore side up, and this pain hurts with walking long distances, quickly, on uneven ground or up & down steep hills or stairs, then this exercise can be a great place to start you getting this pain under control.

Key points to remember -

• the "towel" leg is NOT the exercising side, the "floor" leg is
• keep the "towel side" hip higher than the "floor side" hip
• don't let the "floor side hip" sag outwards - try and keep it straight over your foot
• if you have night time pain, a good time to try this is just before you go to bed
• hold for 45s - you should feel tired at the end of this period, rest for 30-60s and repeat x4
• as pain settles, you will need to progress to harder exercises (so book in!)