Off and on for the past few months i've been getting a pain on the bottom of by foot, sort of towards the inside (like between my big toe and my heel.) It feels like the muscle underneath is stretching or tearing, and i know that sound really bad, but its not too painful, it just gets annoying. I'm assuming this is skating related. Does anyone know what it is?

Arch cramping is fairly common in our sport and can be caused by a number of things. Are your boots a little too stiff? Are your boots too small, narrow or low/high in the arch? Are your blades mounted in the right place? Is it only one foot or both feet? Do you warm up gradually or try to start jumping and spinning right away?

While you're figuring that out, it might give you a little relief to stretch it out a little as soon as you take your skates off. Any calf stretch will also stretch the muscles in the arch of your foot. A good one is to stand on the ball of your foot on the edge of a stair and let your heel hang down below the stair as low as it will go.

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I second that--I stretch my calves/achilles after each time I skate and it really helps with keeping my arches and ankles happy. I use one of these devices. The edge of a stair works fine for me sometimes, but if my achilles is bothering me, then the stretching device works out better. It may be a slightly different stretch for the feet because the device keeps the weight in the heels instead of on the ball of the foot.

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