Stress on your feet can be a problem when you're into your exercises and can't complete them for more than a few days in a row because of the pain. If you are active, then you might experience at one point foot injuries from one repeated motion or another, whether the motion is up and down, sideways or forward. Chronic pain when completing these motions can be the first sign that something is wrong, but the pain will be in different places. This is how you can tell what movements are causing it.
With pushing your foot forward, the arch flattens out. Repeated flattening in certain activities like jogging, running or walking can put pressure on the arch of the feet and the pain will radiate from the bottom of your foot and near the heel. This is caused by the stretching of the tendons in your feet and repeated stress as weight bears down on it.
If your preferred exercise is "keeping you on your toes" you might have problems with the balls of your feet. If they become sore, it is due to the weight in your body not being distributed over the entire foot. While your weight is resting on one part of your foot, the rest of the tendons in your feet are going to try and hold those muscles in place, causing pain and tendon weakness. Injuries from sideways motion often occur in the heels and ankles, causing pain as far up as the calves and knees. If the pain is chronic and severe enough, you may have a stress fracture.
A stress fracture is a tiny crack in the bone caused by the muscles in the foot not being able to absorb all of the shock being pressed upon your foot. These often occur when an athlete has switched routines or intensity, and be very painful. Considering that stress fractures tend to stay in the weight bearing parts of the body, the legs, feet and ankles are the most affected by this. The pain goes away with enough rest, and even a doctor will recommend the activities stop and possibly prescribe special shoes or shoe sole inserts alleviate the problems. Proper footwear can prevent these all of these problems, and in the case of stress fractures, eating calcium rich foods may decrease the risk of these tiny cracks in your bones.
In fact footwear is a huge factor in all of these injuries. If your shoes don't have enough arch support for an individual's foot, the foot can become injured with repeated forward motion. Shoes that are not flexible enough can cause injury if they do not have enough room to move around the balls of the feet. If there is not enough cushion in the sole, you might get a stress fracture and have to wear "special" shoes.
Poor footwear with worn out soles or poor arch support can aide the stress factor to the weigh ratio for some serious pain while walking or jogging. To prevent any of these problems, make sure that the shoes that you buy are both tailored to your feet (in the case of high arches) and compatible with the kind of sports you are playing. Ankle support if you have weak ankles can also prevent any of these problems and should be addressed in the event that you have that kind of weakness.
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