Brewing the most perfect cup of coffee doesn’t have to be complicated. Nor does it have to involve an electric appliance that hogs space on your countertop. Most aficionados agree that the best way to brew is actually with a manually operated French press.
Whether you like to make a couple of cups for you and your SO in the morning, keep yourself caffeinated throughout the day, or serve an after-dinner coffee to guests, there’s a French press that’s best for you.
Why You Should Trust Our Gear Pro
For more than 30 years, I was in charge of testing and reporting on everything from wooden spoons to connected refrigerators at the Good Housekeeping Institute. I’ve walked the floors of every trade show and new product release for longer than most digital publications have existed!
My street cred? I also worked as a chef in New York City restaurants for seven years. And I drink a lot of coffee.
I’ve tested, used, and played with nearly every piece of kitchen gear (including French presses) to come on the market for years. When it comes to gear, it takes a lot to impress me, and I know what actually works.
Picked by a Pro. Tested by Real Home Cooks.
I’ve tested what feels like every French press on the market (at all the price points, low to high!) and these are my all-time favorites. But you don’t have to take my word and my word alone, either. Kitchn editors — a unique hybrid of professionals and home cooks, who develop and test great recipes in real home kitchens — and real Amazon shoppers weighed in on some of these picks too, testing my favorites in the context of their actual home cooking.
After all, when it comes to kitchen gear, what matters is that it works for a home cook — not just that a chef endorses it, or that it passed some high-flying bar in a sterile test kitchen. You want gear that is, above all, practical, long-lasting, and mindful of real cooks, real kitchens, and real budgets.
In fact, I myself have enjoyed a consistent meditation practice for more than 20 years now, and I find it extremely helpful for cultivating awareness and mindfulness, reducing reactivity, and sharpening my focus and productivity. But, as with so many beneficial practices that become widely popular, it is also a victim of its own success. There are a lot of misconceptions about meditation—and some of these fallacies are roadblocks that may be stopping you from starting your own practice (or sticking with it) and reaping its many rewards.
Read on for the top five myths about meditation to stop believing today and for facts that I hope will encourage you to try it for the first time, or revisit the practice again.
Why Are There so Many Myths about Meditation? And What Exactly Is Meditation?
In many ways, a meditation practice is the antithesis of modern life. Meditation trains us to keep our awareness and attention in the present moment, yet today we’re taught to focus on the road ahead—to continuously strive to do and know more. As I’ve noted before, many people now wear busyness as a badge of honor and believe an overloaded, hyperconnected, always “on” life is the measure of success—some kind of 21st century status symbol. “Oh, I’m so busy!”
But I argue that busyness is a cultural disease, one that wrecks both body and mind, and meditation is the antidote. That’s why I want to help you better understand meditation and dispel its most ubiquitous myths.
There isn’t one precise definition of meditation—another probable reason for misunderstandings—in part because a multitude of different methods and traditions fall under the umbrella term.
Think you have to be “good” at meditation to get something out of it? Think again. Follow along as I debunk this and other common myths about meditation and share the facts about this beneficial practice.
Despite the various approaches, there are some underlying generalities: Meditation is a mind–body awareness practice. Through it, you learn to experience your feelings and sensations without judgment and stay present in your life, even in the face of great difficulty or pain.
Although there are many types of meditation, most have these four elements in common: (1)
A quiet location with few distractions (you don’t need to find a remote mountain top)
A comfortable posture (it doesn’t have to be the classic lotus position)
A focus of attention (but you don’t need to chant “OM”)
A flexible, open attitude (you can do this, and it doesn’t have to be perfect)
Transcendental meditation (TM) and mindfulness meditation are the two types studied most often. In TM, you focus your attention on a mantra—a sound or words you repeat to yourself—whereas with mindfulness meditation, you usually focus on your breath or other physical sensations.
Help for Everything from Pain to Your Brain
For good reasons, the much-touted benefits of meditation have drawn the attention of the medical and scientific communities. In fact, the famous “relaxation response” technique—the ability to lower stress in the body through a form of meditation—was developed and popularized by Harvard cardiologist Herbert Benson, MD, in the 1970s. Skeptics dismissed his claims that the relaxation response was a path to better overall health, but research continues to bear out his theories. (2)
In recent years, the number of randomized controlled trials (the gold standard for nutritional research) involving meditation, and mindfulness meditation in particular, has skyrocketed. From 1995 to 1997, only one such trial was conducted; between 2004 and 2006, that number jumped to eleven. But from 2013 to 2015, more than 215 trials focused on mindfulness. (3) Because of this ever-growing interest from researchers, we now have a better understanding of meditation’s wide-reaching impacts on health and well-being.
The most well-designed and executed studies have shown that meditation can: (4, 5, 6, 7)
Significantly reduce stress levels and symptoms of anxiety and depression
Help control chronic pain
Improve markers of heart health such as hypertension and cholesterol
Boost cognitive function, as well as positively change the brain’s gray matter and regions linked with emotions, sense of self, and memory
Let’s explore many of these benefits further as I debunk some of the most common myths about meditation.
Myth #1: Meditation Is about Quieting Your Mind
This is perhaps the most pervasive myth about meditation. If you’ve heard and believed it, I bet it’s the main reason why you haven’t yet started a practice or have given up in frustration.
Here’s the thing: Completely quieting your mental chatter is impossible.
Some research has concluded that we have approximately 60,000 thoughts a day, or roughly one thought every second. (8) Whether that number is actually higher or lower doesn’t really matter. It illustrates just how difficult it would be to empty your mind during meditation. What’s more, going into a session believing you should be able to hit the mute button on your mind only creates more internal noise.
Meditation is about simply becoming aware of your thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment on a moment-to-moment basis—paying attention to what is, rather than focusing on the future or dwelling on the past. It’s about learning to witness your thoughts—not get rid of them altogether—and eventually step away from reflexively judging yourself and others.
Myth #2: You Have to Be “Good at It” to Benefit
We can feel a lot of pressure to get things done “right,” at work and at home. But during meditation, we can release that pressure.
There is no right or wrong way to meditate. In fact, research has proven that brand-new meditators benefit just as much as lifelong practitioners do. It can work regardless of your proficiency level.
For example, in one study designed to measure meditation’s impact on pain, 15 non-meditators attended just four 20-minute classes on mindfulness meditation—for a total of a little over an hour of formal training. Employing what they had only recently learned while subjected to a pain-inducing heat device, these novice meditators experienced significantly reduced activity in the brain’s primary somatosensory cortex, which is involved in creating the feeling and intensity of pain. In fact, while participants meditated, researchers couldn’t detect any activity in this pain-processing center at all. (9, 10)
Another study found that people experiencing high levels of stress had a marked decrease in stress-related communication within their brains two weeks after completing a three-day meditation course. (11) Other research has shown that just four days of meditation training enhanced novice meditators’ ability to sustain attention, a benefit previously only reported with long-term meditators. (12)
If meditation can have such positive benefits on those who are new to it, imagine what it can do for you if you embrace a consistent practice.
Myth #3: You Have to Meditate for an Hour Every Day to Experience Any Perks
As we’ve established, modern life makes for busy schedules. So here’s the good news: as little as 10 minutes of meditation a day can be helpful. Not to mention that a regular practice can actually free up your time by helping you become more productive.
Ten minutes isn’t an arbitrary number. One 2012 study found that just 10 minutes of meditation daily improved participants’ focus and attention over the course of a few months. (13) Research into Kirtan Kriya (KK), a type of yogic chanting meditation designed to take only 12 minutes a day, has found that it can mitigate stress and improve cognitive function, even in seniors already exhibiting memory loss or impairment from mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease. (14, 15)
As with diet and exercise, though, you’ll experience the greatest gains from consistent effort—whether that effort is for just minutes or an hour a session.
To make it a daily habit (like brushing your teeth), you might try incorporating it into your routine at the same time each day. Can you find 10 minutes for yourself? Try it!
Myth #4: You Have to Sit in a Cross-Legged Position
Typically, images of meditators show them sitting cross-legged, with their hands in a specific placement known as a mudra. While mindfulness meditation is often performed seated, the only true requirement is that you sit comfortably. If a cross-legged position isn’t comfortable for you (for some people this stresses their hip flexors or knee joints), try sitting naturally on a cushion or in a chair—and switch positions as needed. You may be most comfortable with your back supported.
Other types of meditation are not practiced while seated. For instance, walking meditation uses movement to help you foster awareness. (16) Qi gong and tai chi are also types of meditative movements.
There are even meditative practices you perform lying down. One, called body scanning, involves lying on a floor, a mat, or your bed. You begin by focusing your attention either at the top of your head or the bottoms of your feet; you then shift your focus up or down your frame, bringing awareness to your entire body. (17)
You may be more likely to fall asleep if you meditate lying down, which is why this position isn’t typically advised, especially for beginners. However, the body scan and related practices can be useful sleep aids.
Bottom line: Get comfortable, in a position that works for you.
Myth #5: It’s Only for Hippie, Spiritual Types (Who Do Yoga)—or People Who Are Really Stressed Out, or the Wealthy Elite, or …
Meditation is for anyone and everyone. Although it has roots in Buddhism and Hinduism, meditation itself is not a religious or spiritual discipline. And as we’ve discussed, it has far-reaching health effects that go beyond stress management. We’ve also seen that you don’t need the luxury of time to make the practice a valuable part of your life.
Meditation is also beneficial for adults and kids alike. While studies involving children and teens are limited, researchers have begun to evaluate the role meditation may play on the developing brain. In particular, several studies have shown that meditation can benefit kids with ADHD, leading to better concentration and improved behavior. As it can for adults, research also points to meditation’s ability to reduce stress levels in young people and improve their mental health. (18, 19)
Don’t shy away from meditation because you think it’s just for certain “types.” For thousands of years—and perhaps especially now—this ancient practice has benefited every type.
An Exciting Truth: We Don’t Yet Know All There Is to Know about Meditation’s Benefits
While the information shared here makes for a compelling reason to start or continue meditating, research has only begun to scratch the surface of the many ways in which it can improve health and the specific benefits of each meditative approach. I look forward to reading new research as it is published and sharing it with you here.
If you’re ready to begin or further develop your practice, there are a variety of free resources online. Lifehacker has some helpful information, and the UCLA Mindfulness Awareness Research Center has a free meditation podcast with guided weekly meditations. I also like the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program, and some people have found apps like Headspace and Insight Timer to be useful. Learning meditation is often easiest if you take classes with a qualified instructor (there are even online classes), and drop-in meditation studios are popping up everywhere.
Now, it’s your turn to chime in. Did you believe any of these myths about meditation? Have you tried to establish a practice before, or are you planning to start? What are your favorite tips and resources on meditation? Comment below and share your thoughts!
Kitchn’s Delicious Links column highlights recipes we’re excited about from the bloggers we love. Follow along every weekday as we post our favorites.
If it’s been a whole week of Mondays, consider celebrating the long-awaited appearance of Friday by making these garlic butter steak bites from The Recipe Critic. They have all the flavor and comfort of steak and potatoes, and you can eat them with just a fork, which makes them ideal for eating on the couch with a glass of red wine and that show you’ve been waiting all week to watch.
Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss
It can be hard to accept, or incorporate, ideas from another area when your current group is grounded upon certain principles.
When it comes to those of us who strength train, we often choose a camp to stick our flag in—it is never just strength training. We often label ourselves as either: a powerlifter, a bodybuilder, a Crossfitter, or an Olympic lifter. For powerlifters who want to be successful, you need to be, at least, bi-partisan when it comes to these camps. If you’re a powerlifter who wants to get to the top of their potential then you absolutely need to take a course in bodybuilding.
Cabbage is one of those unsung heroes in the kitchen. You might not think too much about it, but it can be one of the most versatile veggies in your arsenal. From traditional slaws and salads to stir-fries, soups, and comfort food classics, we predict you’ll be eating a lot of cabbage.
Before you roll your eyes at the sight of another kale chip recipe, hear me out: I know kale chips aren’t exactly cool anymore. At this point, in fact, they could probably be considered retro — worthy of a #TBT.
But, as you may have guessed, I haven’t let them go. In fact, I’m bringing them back with the best recipe yet. This time, I’m not selling them to you because they’re of-the-moment. I’m telling you to make them because they’re so crunchy and salty and flavorful that you’ll want to eat them all straight from the sheet pan. They’re the best way to use the in-season leafy green, and the easiest way to eat a full bunch of kale at once, while also satisfying all your salty snack cravings.
Oven-baked kale chips are easy to make, but there are a few key steps that are crucial to their success. Here’s how to make super-crispy kale chips you’ll actually want to eat.
“I’m trying to lose weight, so I can only have a little.”
If you have ever said anything like the above, you’re in good company. Weight loss is freaking hard. As my friend Adam once said to me: “Steve I hope all of this exercise stuff is worth it for you – do you KNOW how good cake is!?”
The challenge is often never in what we need to do: it’s getting ourselves to ACTUALLY do it.
We all know we should eat less and move more. We know we should eat more veggies. We know we should hit the gym more frequently.
And yet, the scale never seems to budge.
Or worse, we get a few weeks into a workout routine or diet, life gets busy, and we fall apart. We see some progress only to backslide and realize months later we’re no better off.
This is demoralizing as hell, and it seems like nobody can make weight loss stick.
Well, not everybody.
SOME people manage to build new habits they actually sustain. Some people can build a new habit and make it become part of their new routine.
What do they do differently?
They take two very specific steps, and they ask themselves one question every day.
If you struggle with making new habits stick, this article is going to give you a strategy to implement TODAY. Backed by science, written by a nerd, with LEGO photos.
Let’s get weird.
The 3 Layers of Habit Change
My friend James Clear, a behavioral change expert and author of the recently launched Atomic Habits, lives and breathes habit change more than anybody I know.
With his book launching this week, I asked if I could share his 3 layers of behavior change to help the Rebels of Nerd Fitness finally break through the muck and mire and build the habit of hitting the gym, or going for a run, or eating healthier:
THE 3 LAYERS OF BEHAVIOR CHANGE:
The 1st layer is changing your outcomes. This level is concerned with changing your results: losing weight, publishing a book, winning a championship. Most of the goals you set are associated with this level of change.
The 2nd layer is changing your process. This level is concerned with changing your habits and systems: implementing a new routine at the gym, decluttering your desk for better workflow, developing a meditation practice. Most of the habits you build are associated with this level.
The 3rd and deepest layer is changing your identity. This level is concerned with changing your beliefs: your worldview, your self-image, your judgments about yourself and others. Most of the beliefs, assumptions, and biases you hold are associated with this level.
To put it more simply:
Outcomes are about what you get (“I lost weight”).
Processes are about what you do (“I go to the gym regularly”).
Identity is about what you believe (“I am a healthy person that never misses a workout.”
Now, none of the above is rocket science. I think anyway – I have never done rocket science. It’s the same thing we all do every time we try to change a habit.
The reason your habits never stick?
You’re implementing these layers BACKWARDS! Crap.
Where People Get Habit Change Wrong
Most people don’t consider the innermost layer – identity change – when they set out to improve.
We just think, “I want to be skinny (outcome) so if I stick to this diet, then I’ll be skinny (process).”
We set goals and determine the actions we should take to achieve those goals without considering the beliefs that drive our actions:
I want to lose weight, so if I go to the gym more, the scale will go down.
I want to fit into this bathing suit, so if I follow this crazy restrictive diet, I’ll reach my goal.
I want to run a 5k, so I’m gonna start training every day until I run it.
In each scenario, the person never shifts the way they look at themselves, and they don’t realize that their old identity can sabotage their new plans for change.
Let’s talk about identity (the innermost circle) for a second.
When working for you, identity change can be a powerful force for self-improvement.
When working against you, though, identity change can be a curse:
“Once you have adopted an identity, it can be easy to let your allegiance to it impact your ability to change. Many people walk through life in a cognitive slumber, blindly following the norms attached to their identity.
When you have repeated a story to yourself for years (or decades), it is easy to slide into these mental grooves and accept them as a fact. In time, you begin to resist certain actions because “that’s not who I am.” There is internal pressure to maintain your self-image and behave in a way that is consistent with your beliefs.”
Whatever your identity is right now, you believe it because you have recurring proof:
If you identify as somebody with a slow metabolism – the high number on the scale reinforces that every day.
If you identify as somebody with no self control – the empty ice cream containers in your trash can reinforce that identity with each additional pint polished off.
If you identify as a victim of “too busy,” – then every day you are reminded of how busy you are and how you just don’t have time to take care of yourself.
It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior.
You might have a new goal and a new plan, but you haven’t changed who you are.
This is the crucial step that everybody misses, and it’s something you can implement today.
Identity Based Habit Change: Middle Out For the Win!
True behavior change is identity change.
In other words, start with the inside circle and work your way outward. Here’s that graphic again:
You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity:
“On any given day, you may struggle with your habits because you’re too busy or too tired or too overwhelmed or hundreds of other reasons. Over the long run, however, the real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self-image gets in the way.
This is why you can’t get too attached to one version of your identity. Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.”
Anyone can convince themselves to visit the gym or eat healthy once or twice, but if you don’t shift the belief behind the behavior, then it is hard to stick with long-term changes.
In other words, improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are:
The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to be a runner.
The goal is not to lose weight, the goal is to be a healthy self-confident person.
The goal is not to go to the gym, the goal is to be somebody that never misses a workout.
Can you see how this is VERY different than just “I’m gonna go on a diet to lose weight?” It’s MUCH deeper than that.
The person who incorporates exercise into their identity doesn’t have to convince themselves to train. Doing the right thing is easy. After all, when your behavior and your identity are fully aligned, you are no longer pursuing behavior change.
You are simply acting like the type of person you already believe yourself to be. This is the holy grail of permanent weight loss and health success.
Want to build a habit? Do these 2 Simple Steps.
If you’re going to build a new habit, it’s going to be a gradual evolution.
We change bit by bit, day by day, habit by habit. We are continually undergoing microevolutions of the self.
Each habit is like a suggestion:
“Hey, maybe this is who I am.” If you finish a book, then perhaps you ARE the type of person who likes reading. If you go to the gym, then perhaps you ARE the type of person who likes exercise.
And these are the two steps we’re going to hyper focus in on.
Decide the type of person you want to be.
Prove it to yourself with small wins.
STEP ONE: Decide who you want to be. This holds at any level— as an individual, as a team, as a community, as a nation. What do you want to stand for? What are your principles and values? Who do you wish to become?
We’ll get real nerdy on this step below.
STEP TWO: Once you have a handle on the type of person you want to be, take small steps to reinforce your desired identity. Each step, no matter how small, helps you start to realize that, maybe you CAN be a morning person. Or that you DON’T have a slow metabolism. Or that you ARE a runner!
Let’s dig deeper.
Rebel, What Is Your Profession?!
Depending on how long you’ve been reading Nerd Fitness, you might already be doing Step One.
For years now, Nerd Fitness has been turning life into a game. Depending on what you want your new identity to be, you pick the Class/Profession that lines up with this new identity.
Ranger: cross training, metabolic conditioning, jack of all trades
Assassin: parkour, gymnastics, bodyweight training, movement
Monk: martial arts
Druid: yoga, tai chi, meditation, nature
If you want to be a warrior, you ARE a Warrior. Inside. Right now. Welcome to the Warrior Guild!
If you want to run a marathon, congrats! You are a Scout. Inside. Right now. Welcome to the Scout’s Den!
If you want to lose weight and are considering joining a CrossFit gym, congrats! You’re a Ranger. Inside. Right now. Welcome to the Ranger Guild.
I don’t care if you are 400 pounds or 100 pounds and have never picked up a weight or ran a step in your life. Write out your alter-ego, the superhero version of yourself.
How do they train?
How do they eat?
What time do they go to bed?
The goal is not just weight loss – the goal is to build an identity that is aligned with the type of person you want to be.
Me personally? I am an Assassin in the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.
What is YOUR profession!?
Ask yourself this question all day, every day.
Congrats, you now have a new identity! It’s all unicorns and rainbows and effortless weight loss from here on out.
Kidding.
It’s still going to be hard work. There are no shortcuts. No temporary changes will create permanent results. Which means you need to change your perspective. It means you never get to be “done.” You don’t get to go on temporary diets.
Instead, you slowly shift your daily behavior, decision by decision.
And eventually, your outer evolution (lose weight, build muscle, physique change) is going to catch up to your new internal identity.
So now that you have created your new identity and picked your class, it’s time to start asking yourself the question whenever faced with a decision: “What would a Ranger/Monk/Scout do!?”
And then do that thing.
James had a friend who lost over 100 pounds by asking herself, “What would a healthy person do?”
All day long, she would use this question as a guide:
Would a healthy person walk or take a cab?
Would a healthy person order a burrito or a salad?
She figured if she acted like a healthy person long enough, eventually she would become that person. 100 pounds later, she was right.
So let’s look at our examples:
You don’t need to run a 5k to be a Scout. You decide you are a Scout today, and running for 5 seconds makes you a Scout. So what would a scout do? Skip their run? Or go for a run even though they only have 15 minutes?
You don’t need to have ever lifted a weight to be a Warrior. You can start acting like one now. Would a warrior sit on his butt and watch TV? Or would he be doing a beginner bodyweight workout?
You don’t need to be a gymnast NOW to be an Assassin. You just start acting like one. Would a healthy badass Assassin skip his handstand training today? Nope.
This stuff works. Ask yourself what a healthy/superhero/badass person would do. Just ASKING the question makes you more likely to change behavior.
“We found we could get kids to choose the healthier food much more often if we simply asked what their favorite superhero or their favorite princess would do.
Even if they responded “french fries”, half the time they took the apple slices. It simply causes an interruption in their thinking that causes them to pause, hit the reset button inside their head and think again.”
In other words, asking “What would Batman do?” is a real thing, and it can fundamentally change the path of your journey.
This is exactly what we preach and teach with our 1-on-1 Coaching Clients – we essentially ask them what they want to be when they grow up (lol), and then create specific programs and help guide their food choices to become that new version of themselves!
Here is my answer:
“I am an Assassin in the Nerd Fitness Rebellion. I don’t care that I have thin wrists and crappy genetics. I’m reinforcing this by hitting the gym as soon as I hit publish on this article to work on my rings work. Tonight I will eat grilled chicken, quinoa, and broccoli.”
Your turn: Leave a comment below!
-Steve
PS: James Clear’s book Atomic Habits served as the inspiration and outline for today’s article – if you’re interested at all in bettering yourself and improving your health, I would highly recommend checking it out!
If you find yourself with a less-than-stellar bunch of apples, or extra-soft apples that have been sitting around for a few too many days, don’t worry — it happens to the best of us. But don’t toss them away! Not even the ones with the nasty bruises.
Apples that are past their prime might not be great for biting into as an afternoon snack, but they’ve still got some life left in them. Older apples are great for cooking! As the apples break down during cooking, the remaining liquid is released and the natural sugars concentrate, transforming them into something remarkably delicious. Here are 10 smart uses for your not-so-great apples.
It comes but once a year. Oh, yes — once a year you’re allowed to delve into the dark, twisted part of your mind and come up with something that’ll scare the bejeesus out of people. As mentioned, I’d rather stick with friendly ghosts, but I’m not one to keep anyone else away from the creep! Here are 10 spooky (albeit, pretty clever!) food ideas for your Halloween party.
As many of you know, Brad is my longtime writing partner, host of the Primal Endurance podcast and host of the weekly keto show on the Primal Blueprint podcast. Our relationship goes back 30 years to when I was Brad’s coach during his career on the professional triathlon circuit. The start of Brad’s chronic plantar fasciitis ordeal dates back nearly that long, until he was completely cured in a matter of weeks back in 2011. Hence, the subject of today’s post! If you are a sufferer, pay close attention because we dove deep into this topic and are giving you the tools to never suffer again.
Indeed, as Brad will detail shortly, miracle cures are possible, even for extreme sufferers. About three years ago, Brad was over at my place on a Monday and noticed me spending a lot of time rubbing and stretching my chronically tight Achilles tendon; it had taken its weekly beating the previous day at Ultimate Frisbee. I tried the prolonged stretches he details in the article and experienced immediate relief. (Around the same time, I also started to experiment with the early supplemental collagen products on the market, which also helped my foot issues and other joint aches and pains clear up.).
Enjoy today’s article, and let us know your thoughts on this treatment protocol.
Plantar fasciitis—it’s painful to even pronounce, and if you contract this condition you’re in for a long, frustrating, painful ordeal. It’s characterized by a burning sensation around the rim and/or bottom of your heel, and assorted peripheral pains such as a sore or burning arch, sensitive nerve endings along your arch, inflamed bursa sacs in your heel bone that make the heel sensitive to touch and applied weight, a bumpy, lumpy sensation on the bottom of your heel that are often called bone spurs, and general stiffness, tightness, and pain in the foot, arch, Achilles tendon, and calf muscles.
Symptoms are typically worse first thing in the morning or after prolonged periods of sitting or standing. If you have a mild case, you can get some range of motion and blood flow going upon awakening and the pain will typically subside and not compromise your exercise. In advanced stages, you will have a hard time getting mobility going and even walking will be painful. When you do get sufficiently warmed up and into a workout, the burning pain will often continue during and after exercise. The condition can worsen over time until you are sidelined by the lack of mobility and subsequent chronic pain.
Explaining Plantar Fasciitis: Anatomy and Causes Behind It
The plantar fascia is a super-strong ligament that runs the length of the bottom of your foot. On one end, the plantar fascia attaches to the metatarsal bones of each of your toes. It then fans out wide, like a sheet covering the length of the bottom of your foot. It subsequently tapers to attach into your calcaneus (heel bone). The plantar fascia acts as a prominent shock absorber when you walk, run, or jump. Consequently, it gets put under a lot of stress and can easily become inflamed when the muscles, ligaments, and tendons in your lower extremities are dysfunctional or overstressed.
Plantar fasciitis is extremely common among not only runners and competitive athletes but also folks who work on their feet all day like nurses, laborers and even standup desk user. Then there are people who have strong sedentary patterns (commute, desk job, insufficient exercise); people with arthritis, obesity, poor muscle tone, flexibility, mobility or generally poor physical fitness; and people who wear crappy modern shoes with stiff construction, encased toe compartments, and elevated heels. Does that pretty much cover the entire population of the developed world?
Indeed, no one is immune to the risk of plantar fasciitis, because the condition often comes about when there is any sort of weakness, overuse, inflammation, or dysfunction in the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the lower extremities. For example, if your calf muscles or Achilles tendons become stiff and inflamed from doing chronic cardio or consuming an inflammation-boosting high-carb, allergenic-loaded, SAD diet, these dysfunctions may manifest most painfully as plantar fasciitis.
I don’t know many serious runners who haven’t had this condition at one point or another in their lives. I had the condition for the better part of 15 years—ranging from a mild lingering annoyance that vanished with some quick morning exercises that increased blood flow and mobility, to so debilitating that I couldn’t walk in the morning. Indeed, for several years in the midst of my professional triathlon career, I had to exit bed onto one leg, hop out the door into the backyard, then drop my right leg into my backyard spa. Only after a few minutes of working through ankle and calf range of motion with hot jets blasting could I apply pressure to the foot and walk normally. Then, I’d lace up my shoes and head out for a run of five, ten, or even twenty miles!
That’s a strange juxtaposition from cripple to endurance machine in a few minutes, but it generates an important reflection: plantar fasciitis almost never gets better with rest alone. On the contrary, it quite often gets worse when an injured athlete stops running or a nurse takes a leave from the ER floor for a desk position. For example, during one off season of my professional career, I decided (in consultation with my coach Mark Sisson) to take a six-week break from running in order to focus on swimming and cycling and allow the painful plantar fasciitis injury to heal once and for all. Upon my return to light jogging, you can guess what happened: the injury was more painful than ever!
Interventions That Address the Symptoms, Not the Cause
Before we get to the prescribed treatment protocol, let’s look at what interventions are commonly suggested but generally don’t work well at actually treating the condition. (See how many look familiar.) As you might expect, athletes and active folks have tried all sorts of treatment modalities and remedies, most of them landing somewhere on the spectrum from ineffective but harmless to outright disastrous.
Rest
Well intentioned as it may be, rest is usually ineffective with plantar fasciitis. Getting off your feet or out of your exercise groove results in atrophy of both the large muscles and small stabilizer muscles in your legs as well as reduced range of motion, increased stiffness, shortened muscle, and—often—more pain when you try to return to your normal activities.
Orthotics, Arch Supports, Arch Taping
These approaches work like a Band-Aid works to stop the bleeding. If you have plantar fasciitis and have to perform for your country in the Olympics, a professional taping job is a great idea to keep the pain at bay and allow you to qualify out of your heat for the quarter-final. Alas, these support measures fail to address the cause, however.
Furthermore, they can very often compromise healing if you insist on using them long-term instead of making a sincere commitment to addressing and healing the underlying causes. Specifically, using artificial aids and supports will cause weakening and atrophy of the lower extremities over time. You make things easy for your feet, so they can wither away inside a cushy protective cocoon instead of be challenged to grow stronger every moment that you ambulate.
That said, remember that staying active is essential to ultimate healing of plantar fasciitis, and so using support measures to help you stay active by any means necessary can be warranted over the short term.
Ice, Heat, Electrical Stimulation, Ultrasound
These and other feel-good techniques are generally focused on relieving painful symptoms—symptoms that are bound to return again and again over time until you address the cause. As previously stated, complementary therapies are fine to the extent that they help keep you active. Ice massage can also be helpful in the aftermath of performing some aggressive healing exercises, as we will discuss shortly.
Massage Therapy
This can be highly effective to undo some of the damage caused by chronic injury and facilitate healing. In particular, Active Release Technique (ART) and deep tissue techniques go a long way toward increasing the mobility and fluidity of muscles and connective tissue.
The caveat here is that deep massage and ART treatments set you up for success, but you have to do the healing work described shortly to make the effects stick. Otherwise, you will undo damage with the bodywork, then create the damage all over again by exercising on dysfunctional legs.
Cortisone Injection
Can you say “rupture”? Not rapture, but rupture. Yes, ouch! Generally, cortisone injections provide immediate and amazing relief from pain symptoms, often at extreme risk to your long-term health. When you override your body’s natural inflammatory processes and pain signaling with a powerful drug, you gain instant relief, but increase injury risk because you no longer are governed by natural tightness and pain that is attempting to protect you from the damage of performing with a dysfunctional appendage. Furthermore, anti-inflammatory treatments (including chronic use of seemingly innocent NSAIDS before workouts) weaken your natural ability to regulate inflammation over time.
There are a tiny fraction of injury cases where a cortisone injection may provide enough relief to facilitate an aggressive rehabilitation process that results in healing, but I urge extreme caution here. I say “extreme” because you may face enthusiastic health care professionals who will pretty much beg you to accept an injection. I know someone whose decades long nursing career ended in large part due to a cortisone injection that preceded a rupture, multiple surgeries, and ultimately a downward spiral that ended in permanent disability status.
The Plantar Fasciitis Cure: An Extended Stretching Regimen For Fast Healing
When you address the causes of plantar fasciitis, you’ll experience relief from the painful symptoms surprisingly quickly. To correct the cause, you must lengthen your calf muscles, increase mobility throughout the lower extremities, and start a methodical progression to a more minimalist/barefoot lifestyle. Commit to the following protocol every single day for just a couple weeks and it’s quite likely that even a severe and debilitating long-term condition will clear up to the extent that you will be pain-free and fully functional in a matter of weeks.
Lengthen Your Calf Muscles
“Do the wall stretches several times a day. Hold each stretch for two minutes. You’ll be healed in a few weeks.” This brief quip was all I needed to cure 15 years of consistent pain and suffering from plantar fasciitis. The message was delivered to me in 2011 by a podiatrist in a booth at the race expo of the Sacramento, CA, Urban Cow Half-Marathon and 5k—where I am the announcer annually. I have tried in vain to figure out who the guy was, but I’ll extend my deepest gratitude to the mystery healer right here and now.
Here is what happened on that fateful day: I typically walk the grounds and meet the exhibitors, so I can give them a little plug over the P.A. I remember from that day a booth with signs about healing foot pain and exam tables set up for interested runners. An enthusiastic podiatrist greeted me at the booth and started talking about how he could easily and quickly cure conditions like plantar fasciitis.
I challenged his assertion, informing him that I’d had the condition for 15 years and had tried everything: morning Jacuzzi hopping, a heel lift in my right foot, removing the heel lift, returning the heel lift, expensive rigid orthotics custom molded from my footprint, expensive soft “dynamic” orthotics made of silicone gel, obsessive icing and stretching, wearing giant pillow cushion shoes from Nike, switching over to Vibram Five Fingers and other minimalist options, switching back to pillow shoes—basically everything short of the dreaded cortisone injection.
I eventually agreed to try the prolonged stretches, obviously with huge reservations but a sincere commitment. In a few weeks, my symptoms were completely gone for the first time in 15 years. I’d call it a miracle, but it was so incredibly simple I’m not sure you can call it a miracle.
Extended Wall Stretch
Hopefully, you’re familiar with the wall stretch that is the runner’s bread and butter? You extend one leg behind you, lean into the wall at a 45-degree angle, and push against it like you are trying to push it over. With your rear leg straightened and heel grounded, the stretch focuses on the soleus, the narrow muscle running along either side of your leg and merging at the bottom into your Achilles tendon. When you bend your rear leg and lift your heel off the ground, you redirect the emphasis to the gastrocnemius, the ball-shaped muscle that gives you that sexy rock-hard definition on the upper part of your leg.
Holding each of the aforementioned four stretches (left leg straight, left leg bent, right leg straight, right leg bent) for two minutes is the secret to healing. In case you’ve never timed your stretches, holding a single position for two minutes will likely seem like an eternity. I’d speculate that the most devoted stretching enthusiasts might never hold a single stretch for than 10-20 seconds. Even the most deliberate of yoga classes won’t hold you in a single position for that long. As I mentioned, I had devotedly stretched my lower legs and feet in assorted ways for years in the tug-of-war against my condition, but never held any single stretch for so long.
Why Two Minutes?
When you hold a stretch for two minutes, you are sending a powerful message to your musculoskeletal and central nervous systems to lengthen the relevant muscle fibers. Witness ballerina dancers stretching for hours every day in order to maintain optimal muscle function for their demanding efforts—constantly reinforcing the message to brain and tissue that they need to by hyper-flexible.
This process of lengthening a muscle is complex but important to understand. If you listen to or read the Nutritious Movement commentary from noted biomechanist and author Katy Bowman, you may be familiar with the term proprioceptors. These are the nerve endings that help your muscles communicate with your central nervous system. When your proprioceptors detect a muscle fiber being stretched, something called the stretch reflex is triggered. This reflex causes a stretched muscle to contract—an excellent safeguard against injury during assorted day-to-day activities, including fitness activities and sports.
After a workout in which muscles have repeatedly contracted or absorbed impact, holding a few stretches for twenty seconds will send a nice little message to the fibers to relax and loosen up a bit as you transition from a state of exertion to relaxation. Then the stretch reflex kicks in, you experience a little discomfort, and end the stretch. When you go big time, work through the possibly uncomfortable stretch reflex sensation, and hold the muscle in a stretched position, you start to make some real progress. Here the proprioceptors in the stretched muscle, known as the muscle spindles, become habituated to the new length of the muscle such that the stretch reflex is muted. Instead, when specific thresholds of stretching frequency, intensity and duration are exceeded, a lengthening reaction occurs in the muscle. Here the muscles relax and allow you to deepen into the stretch. If you have ever been to a yoga class and noticed you can take stretches much deeper after you are warmed up and habituated with repeated stretches, you may know what this lengthening reaction feels like.
When your muscles relax due to the lengthening reaction, another key player on your healing team jumps into action: the golgi tendon organ. This is located in the tendon near the end of a muscle. It sends a message to your central nervous system, essentially: “Hey, this dude is sick of suffering with plantar fasciitis for 17 years. He wants some longer calf muscles for Christmas, so please comply.” Enjoy this much more detailed and scientific discussion of the science of muscle stretching.
Tips For Adopting the Healing Protocol
If you want to heal quickly, strive to quickly work up to doing the wall stretch protocol several times a day (shoot for five times or more). As described previously, this will take all of eight minutes per session: two stretches on two legs for two minutes each. An aggressive stretching regimen will, in a matter of days, greatly relieve the stress on your arch and heel caused in large part by shortened muscles that don’t absorb impact optimally.
Because of the high degree of difficulty with two-minute stretches, you can expect some next day soreness. Take care to stretch only the point of mild discomfort instead of actual pain. This may mean you have to back off a bit during your wall push to survive until the two-minute bell. You will also likely discover that you will be able to hold a much deeper stretch in the evening than in the morning, and more easily reach the two-minute bell. Alas, doing these stretches first thing in the morning when your muscles are the shortest is critical to your progress. So is doing them as many times per day as you are willing. Remember, we are trying to work beyond the stretch reflex and achieve a lengthening reaction.
You may even consider getting the legendary Strassburg sock to assist your healing process. This device, a sock with a strap attached, places your ankle in a flexed position all night, putting the plantar fascia under tension so that it does not contract and cause the painful morning stiffness. Instead, you wake up with an elongated plantar fascia much like the afternoon version that feels much better to walk on than the morning version. Again, the sock is best used in conjunction with an aggressive healing protocol.
Please keep in mind this prolonged stretching protocol is designed for injury prevention/healing, and is not advisable right before a workout. You may have heard prominent accounts of how static stretching can temporarily weaken a muscle for up to 30 minutes, and this is a valid concept. After all, you are about to demand intense contractions from your muscles for the workout, so aggressive pre-workout stretching is not the best way to prime them for action. Instead, do a simple warmup—increasing body temperature and respiration to the extent that you break a little sweat.
Watch this video where I describe the power of the wall stretch to heal plantar fasciitis and direct you to do the stretches correctly.
Mobilizing Lower Extremities
Concurrent with your commitment to prolonged calf stretches is a commitment to achieve increased mobility and flexibility in the foot and leg, via a series of special movements and treatment modalities with colorful nicknames. If you’re in the Crossfit scene or otherwise a fan of Dr. Kelly Starrett, aka “K-Starr,” you might be familiar with some of the unique and colorful terminology—terms like bashing, tacking and mobilizing—that have become his custom lexicon and spread like wildfire into the fitness community. K-Starr is a former elite level whitewater kayak athlete, proprietor of San Francisco CrossFit, creator of the popular MobilityWOD.com website, and author of Becoming a Supple Leopard—perhaps the most comprehensive volume on mobility, flexibility, functionality, healing and prevention for athletic folks ever in the history of the world. Visit MobilityWOD.com to get a free 10-day dose of Kelly and his highly engaging, informal, and humorous style with which he conveys his unique and effective approach.
K-Starr is a big fan of using toys like massage balls, golf balls, lacrosse balls, foam rollers, voodoo straps (try this Voodoo Floss treatment for plantar fasciitis) and even elbows in an aggressive and focused manner to increase blood flow, improve range of motion, and facilitate healing in muscles and connective tissue. Once your mobility improves, you then have a fighting chance at exhibiting correct functional movement during exercise and daily life (e.g., running with a balanced center of gravity over your feet and an efficient dorsiflexion of the foot on each stride), such that you won’t be doomed to a lifetime of repeating injuries, both acute and overuse.
Regarding plantar fasciitis, Starrett recommends attacking the cause by working to increase mobility, flexibility, and functionality throughout the lower extremities. You can check out his full suggested regimen on YouTube.
Complete the prolonged stretching plus mobility work protocol several times a day until the pain and stiffness are nearly when you awaken in the morning. Then you can shift into maintenance mode where you might do the stretches once or twice a day instead of five to seven times a day. And you might do your bashing, tacking and mobilizing only in the aftermath of tough workouts when you experience next-day stiffness.
Your main objective is to prevent the shortening and lost mobility that laid the foundation for plantar fasciitis in the first place.
Look for Brad’s follow-up post on preventing plantar fasciitis from setting in (or re-occurring) later in just a couple weeks. In the meantime, give your focus to the treatment, and let these stretches do their magic. Thanks again to my friend, Brad Kearns, for stopping in and sharing his experience today.
Again, you can follow Brad on his new podcast, Get Over Yourself, where he gets to unleash his lively personality and cover broader topics including health, fitness, peak performance, personal growth, relationships, happiness, and longevity, always with humor and a little spice.
Thanks, everybody. Be sure to share your thoughts and questions on plantar fasciitis below. Have a great end to your week.
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As many of you know, Brad is my longtime writing partner, host of the Primal Endurance podcast and host of the weekly keto show on the Primal Blueprint podcast. Our relationship goes back 30 years to when I was Brad’s coach during his career on the professional triathlon circuit. The start of Brad’s chronic plantar fasciitis ordeal dates back nearly that long, until he was completely cured in a matter of weeks back in 2011. Hence, the subject of today’s post! If you are a sufferer, pay close attention because we dove deep into this topic and are giving you the tools to never suffer again.
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