Plantar Fascia and the deep foot
There are a lot of people who specialise in foot work but for many therapists this can be an overlooked area. For me, it’s a part of the body that I will often start with. Gait, walking, running and general movement starts with the feet, assuming that this is possible.
We hear about foot pain sometimes being classified as plantar fasciitis, but what exactly is the plantar fascia, what does it look like and how does it connect to the deeper structures of the foot? In addition, how are these fascial structures blended around and connected into the lower limb? Feet can also be a bit forgotten in the dissection room too, but I have gathered some incredible footage (apologies) of graded dissections where the function and connection of the fascia to the deeper tissues are shown clearly.
As well as the dissection of the foot, we’ll look at some of the connecting elements such as the plantaris and the fibulas, both of which blend strongly into the plantar fascia and could easily be implicated in any foot presentations.