Effects of Strengthening and Stretching Exercises on the Temporospatial Gait Parameters in Patients With Plantar Fasciitis: A Randomized Controlled Trial

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of physical therapy interventions using strengthening and stretching exercise programs on pain and temporospatial gait parameters in patients with plantar fasciitis (PF).METHODS: Eighty-four patients with PF participated in the study and were randomly assigned to the strengthening or stretching exercise groups. All patients received 8 physical therapy interventions two times per week in the first 4 weeks and performed daily strengthening or stretching exercises three times per day. After 4 weeks, they continued the assigned exercise programs every day for 8 weeks. Pain visual analogue scale (VAS) scores at the worst and in the morning and temporospatial gait parameters were evaluated at the baseline, intermediate of the intervention, end of the intervention, and the first and second month follow-up.RESULTS: There were significant effects of the time on the worst pain, morning pain, cadence, stride time, stride length, total double support, and gait speed, but there was no effect on step width. In addition, the main effect of the group and the interaction effects of the time and the group were not found in any parameters. For intra-group comparisons, there were significant differences in worst pain, morning pain, cadence, and stride time among the assessment times in both groups. For inter-group comparisons, there were no significant differences in all parameters.CONCLUSION: Both strengthening and stretching exercise programs significantly reduced pain and improved gait in patients with PF.

Effect of cross training by eccentric isotonic knee extensor training at fast velocity on muscle performance of untrained leg in Thai male

Purpose: This study aim to investigate effect ofcross training by eccentric isotonic knee extensortraining at fast velocity on muscle performance ofuntrained leg in Thai males. Participants: Twentyhealthy males aged 19.80 ± 0.83 years participated in this study. They were divided into two groups; training (TG) and control (CG) groups (n=10 each). Methods: The TG trained unilateral eccentric isotonic exercise of right leg 3 times/week for 6 weeks on Biodex system 4 pro at velocity of 180o /s. The CG received no exercise except strength testing of both legs. Concentric isokinetic peak torque (CPT) and eccentric isokinetic peak torque (EPT) of knee extensor muscle of both legs was tested at pre and post training period. Analysis: CPT and EPT were analyzed using a group (CG, TG)×leg (trained, untrained×time (pre, post) multivariate analysis. When there were multivariate significances, the two-way mixed ANOVA was used and then the Bonferroni’s test was used for the post hoc analysis. The change of CPT and EPT between pre and post training were analyzed using a group (CG, TG)×leg (trained, untrained) multivariate analysis. When there were multivariate significances, the unpaired t-test was used. Results: There were not significant differences in CPT and EPT between trained and untrained legs in both groups and both times. At pre-training period, there were significant differences in EPT of trained leg between CG and TG (p=0.024) (113.09 ± 23.97 and 90.16 ± 28.71 Nm, respectively). After 6 weeks of training, EPT of TG in both trained and untrained legs (135.44 ± 54.90 and 114.12 ± 36.19 Nm, respectively) were greater than in those of CG (62.13 ± 12.62 and 52.52 10.09 Nm, respectively) (p=0.001). The change of CPT only trained leg (44.93 ± 39.88 Nm) in TG was greater than CG (8.67 ± 17.32 Nm) (p=0.021) but the changes of EPT in both trained and untrained legs of TG (83.38 ± 57.16 and 65.50 ± 35.58 Nm, respectively) were greater than those of CG (-3.4 ± 10.41 and -4.69 ± 12.43 Nm, respectively) (p=0.001). In TG, there were significant differences in CPT and EPT between pre and post training in both trained (p