Foot and ankle pain

I am experiencing pain on the left side of my right foot below and around my ankle when I walk and put pressure on this foot. When sitting down, I am able to circle my foot with minimal pain. Could you tell me what the problem is likely to be? And what I can do to help recovery?

Some background details are that:

• I went to a running track on Monday and carried out a athletics training session for the first time in about a year. This included dynamic warm ups, and then 3 sets of 1 800m and 4 200m runs with between 2 minutes and 45 second breaks in between.
• I play 11-a-side every Sunday and am fine
• I also train once a week on a 4g pitch
• I get problems with my IT band. This doesn’t happen anymore from football, but it came on during the running training about half way through. It only came on enough to be discomforting though, no pain as has happened in the last. The day after my knee aches but my foot was fine. Then by the evening my knee was fine but the foot problem came on while walking home from work.

Hi Malcolm

No swelling or obvious trauma I take it?

There’s not too much tissue down there that can be pain producing without an obvious incident – but I wonder if your track session is the clue.

I think you may have an overuse issue – depending what way you ran around a track (the corners) and simply doing too much too soon. I think you’ve got a peroneal tendinopathy.

Your peroneal muscles run down your calf and pass behind the outer part of your ankle and attach into your foot – they evert, or pull your foot out. If you block this movement and make the muscles work, it should reproduce your pain.

You need to work on your balance and get your peroneal muscles stronger. Lunges, squats and split squats are great starting places. Decrease your activity (but not totally cut it out) and slowly reintroduce running – speed and distance when your symptoms have settled….and easy on the corners.

Seeing someone who knows their stuff will also help you get from A to B quicker….

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