Which Yoga Poses Are Helpful For A Heel Spur?

Hey everybody! Welcome to this month’s question of the month. As you know, I answer these questions every month. If you’ve got one, you can go to yoganatomy.com/myquestion. I’ll answer yours on video as well. This month’s question comes from Rosa, and it’s about which poses are helpful and which to avoid with a heel spur in yoga.

The Question:

At the moment, I’m doing a vinyasa yoga teacher training. In two weeks, I’ll practice teaching with my parents and brothers. They are total beginners, so I’m a little nervous. I’m preparing a sequence, but I came up with a question. My father has heel spurs, and I was wondering which asanas are good for him and which are not. I hope you can answer my question with an explanation of why. Thank you in advance.
Best wishes, Rosa.

The Answer:

It’s a really good question. You know, I often get questions about what’s the right asana or the wrong asana. It’s natural, of course, to want to avoid problems, avoid injuries, and not make things worse. So, it is a good question. Unfortunately, I mean, people have put together lists. When you have this, don’t do this, don’t do this, and don’t do this. Do this, do this, and do this. What that leaves out is assessing the situation and assessing the individual who is in front of you.

First, assess the specific situation

Of course, that’s different if you’re in a big led class. But, in this case, it’s a small group, and it’s her family. Although arguably, that could make things more difficult. Teaching family, as many of you know already, can be challenging. But when you have a small group or a private, focus on assessment. Be more willing to play and assess what’s right in front of you as opposed to trying to default to a list. I understand that the list is a starting place. That’s how Rosa’s thinking about it, I’m going to assume. There’s nothing wrong with having it as a starting place, but be willing to change.

To answer the question, generally speaking, movement is going to be good for working with a heel spur during yoga. You increase blood flow and all that kind of stuff. That’s true for almost every injury. There are exceptions, of course. Broken bones? Don’t move them.

Understanding heel spurs

Here’s the thing with a heel spur. Heel spurs—assuming all the diagnoses are right and everything—heel spurs are the end of a line of symptoms and problems. The first of which is tight calf muscles. Usually, there’s some pain in the calf or in the Achilles tendon. When you have tight calf muscles and a tight Achilles tendon, the connective tissue is pulling. Or, you have plantar fasciitis. You have pain on the bottom of your foot. The whole line of myofascia from the bottom of the foot, behind the heel, and up into the calf, at a minimum, is too tight. Too tight, meaning dysfunctionally tight. It’s not sufficiently pliable and mobile. As a result of that, at the heel end, you’re going to get a pulling away of the myofascia from the bone, just ever so slightly. And what occurs over time when that happens is a heel spur.

Now, once the heel spur is in place, you’ve got a bony growth sitting there. That’s really hard to get rid of. So, you’re not going to get rid of that, per se. But, stretching the myofascia on the bottom of the foot, specifically the plantar fascia—but just think generally the bottom of the foot and calf muscle—is what is going to generally be good for that individual during yoga.

Lengthen the tight muscles

Will the heel spur go away with yoga? Probably not. Will the yoga aggravate it? It could irritate it a little bit. But the long-term benefit, I would argue, is probably better. That’s assuming they’re going to continue. That’s assuming they’re going to, you know, be a good student and practice. Right? That’s assuming they’ll do what you’ve asked them to do and do those types of exercises. So, that’s my basic advice. That’s where I would really start, stretching the bottom of the foot and stretching the calf muscle.

Consider the effects of your approach

It brings up another interesting point. I’m going to just tack this one on. Because I just got back from a European trip, at least while I’m recording this. Maybe not while you’re watching this. There’s a big movement for pointing the foot away while you’re in forward bending. I get it, you know, it kind of draws people forward. It makes it feel like the hamstring is being released. But what you’re doing also, is shortening the calf muscle. There are probably a lot of tight calf muscles out there, and you don’t really want to add that kink into the chain.

So what I would say is, before I make some big proclamation of everybody’s doing it wrong. I’m not saying that. What I am saying is be mindful when you do things like that. When the idea of a forward bend is to stretch the back line of the body, and you’re putting contraction into that line, you might throw the balance off of the tissues back there. Just saying that’s a possibility.

Hey, if you’ve got a question, ask it. Go ahead. I dare you! Go to yoganatomy.com/myquestion