Why do the bottom of your feet hurt after walking on concrete all day? What is it that’s even being affected? The skin or muscle or bone or nerves or something else?
In: Biology
Depending on how long you walk/stand on a hard surface like concrete, bone, muscle and connective tissue may be affected. A hard surface does not cushion your steps, so you transmit a sharper and stronger wave of mechanical pressure all the way to your knees and pelvis. Over a day, this doesn’t do much, but over longer periods and especially for women, stress fractures may develop. These are tiny fractures in bones in the food and ankle, they’re not too bad and they can heal, but they do cause pain when using the limb. Over longer times, knees may get damaged. Their cartilage may degrade and possibly result in osteoarithritis for those susceptible. Over one day though, probably it’s a combination of tiny injuries to the connective tissue, bone and calf muscles’ tendons cause local inflammations that feel like pain. Achilles tendinitis is quite painful, in both calf and heel. Not to mention also plantar fasciitis, which is an inflammation of flat band of connective tissue connecting your heel to your toes and supporting your foot arch. Walking on concrete can put so much stress on the foot that tiny tears develop in it leading to inflammation and pain. This fasciitis only occurs over long term though and takes months to fully recover from.
A lot of this can be alleviated or prevented with proper walking gait and good shoes.
Latest Answers