Inner Tailbone Zone (Zone 57): Foot Reflexology for Tailbone Pain
The inner tailbone zone (Zone 57) is a curved band around the inner back corner of the heel, running from the edge of the sole up toward the thick cord at the back of the ankle. In foot reflexology it is commonly used for tailbone ache and for sciatica. Work it for about a minute on each foot.
| Where | The inner back corner of the heel, in a curved band from the edge of the sole up toward the heel cord. |
|---|---|
| How to find it | Cup the back of the heel in your palm. The band sits where the rounded back of the heel turns onto its inner side. |
| How to press | Find the area, then probe it with a rounded-tip pressing tool or the tip of your thumb until one point stings. Rub that point in small circles. Sharp under the tool is right; pain that stays after you lift off is not. |
| How long | Three slow passes, about a minute per foot. Both feet. |
| Used for | Commonly used for tailbone ache, lingering soreness after a fall onto the tailbone, and sciatica. |
| Skip it if | The back of the heel is swollen, hot or cracked, or you are pregnant. |
Quick steps: how to press the inner tailbone zone
- Sit and rest one foot across the opposite knee, inner side of the foot facing up.
- Cup the heel in your hand so your thumb lies on the inner back corner, at the edge of the sole.
- Walk the thumb upward along the curve, a few millimetres at a time, until it reaches the base of the heel cord.
- Make three slow passes, then change feet and do the same.
Where the Inner tailbone Zone Sits
Cup the back of your heel in your palm. Your hand fits around a rounded block of bone wrapped in thick skin. On the inner side of that block, where the round back of the heel turns the corner onto the inside of the foot, is a curved band. That band is the inner tailbone zone.
It starts low, at the edge of the sole where the heel pad ends. From there it curves upward and slightly backward, following the outline of the heel, toward the thick cord that runs down the back of your ankle (the Achilles tendon). It stops at the base of that cord. It is about the width of your thumb and the length of your thumb's top two joints.
Under it lies the back of the heel bone. The Achilles tendon, the strongest tendon in the body, attaches to the lower back of this bone. Between the tendon and the bone, a little above where it attaches, is a small fluid-filled cushion that lets the tendon glide. The heel's fat pad wraps around the bottom of the band.
The skin on the inner side of the heel is supplied by small branches of the tibial nerve, the nerve that passes behind the inner ankle into the sole. These branches come off in the hollow behind the ankle bone and spread out over the inner heel.
The tailbone, the body part this band is named for, is a short row of three to five tiny bones fused together at the very bottom of the spine, below the sacrum. When you lean back in a chair, you are partly sitting on it. Several of the muscles and ligaments of the pelvic floor attach to it.
Why This Area
In foot reflexology the inner edge of the foot is mapped to the spine. The big toe is the neck, the rising arch is the upper and middle back, and the firm bump in the middle of the arch is the lower back. Moving backward, the side of the heel is the sacrum. The last stop on the line, where the heel turns its corner, is the tailbone.
This is a map: a set of correspondences between the foot and the body, not a claim about wiring. Its use is practical. If your foot is the spine, the heel is the bottom of it, and the very back of the heel is the very bottom.
What is honest to say is this. Practitioners commonly use this band for sciatica and for the lingering soreness that can follow a fall onto the tailbone. Those are the two uses listed in the Vietnamese manual we follow.
Where This Map Comes From
Reflexology rests on an idea first published in 1917. William Fitzgerald, an American ear, nose and throat doctor, and Edwin Bowers set it out in a book called Zone Therapy. They divided the body into ten long zones, five each side, each running down to a toe. They wrote that pressure in one part of a zone could dull sensation elsewhere in it. The book is out of copyright and can be read freely.
Their zones ran the length of the body but said little about the feet in detail. That came in the 1930s, when Eunice Ingham, an American therapist, mapped the feet zone by zone. Charts that grew out of her work put the spine along the inner edge of the foot and the pelvis in the heel.
The system reached Asia later. From the 1980s it spread across Taiwan, mainland China and Vietnam, where practitioners split the heel into several separate zones, including two for the tailbone, one on each side. The Vietnamese manual we follow, by Nguyen Thanh Nhan (Hanoi, 2020), after the Chinese text by Gu Peide and Zhu Zuocai, places this one on the inner edge of the heel, as a band behind the heel bone. Its author notes that it does more for sciatica when worked together with the lower back strip on the arch.
Foot reflex zones do not appear in the classical Chinese medical texts. They belong to the last hundred years, and we say so plainly.
Zones That Work With the Inner tailbone Zone
The outer tailbone band. The same curve on the other side of the heel, around the outer back corner. Work it straight after this one, using the same grip turned round. See the outer tailbone zone.
The sacrum strip, low on the inner heel. A little forward of this band, along the side of the heel a finger-width above the sole, starting below the ankle bone. Walk it first, backward, and let it lead into this band. See the sacrum zone.
The lower back strip on the inner arch. The strip along the inner edge of the arch, from the bony bump in front of the inner ankle to the middle of the arch. See the lower back zone.
To tell the three apart, follow the inner edge from front to back:
- Lower back: around the firm bump at the top of the arch. First on the line.
- Sacrum: low on the side of the heel, below the ankle bone. Second.
- Inner tailbone: around the back corner of the heel. Last.
How to Press the Inner tailbone Zone
The whole method, in three steps
1. Find the area shown on this page. You do not need to be exact yet.
2. Find the sharp point inside it. Probe slowly around the area with a rounded-tip pressing tool, or the tip of your thumb, until one place stings — a sharp, pinpoint “ouch”. That is your point.
3. Rub that point in small circles. One to three minutes. Less in the first sessions, more as the days go on. Sharp under the tool is right; pain that stays after you lift off is not.
Getting Into Position
Sit in a firm chair with your back supported and both feet flat. Lift one foot and rest it across the opposite knee, so the inner side faces up and the heel hangs a little over your thigh. That gives your hand room to cup it.
If you cannot bring your foot up, rest the heel on a footstool with a folded towel under the ankle, and lean forward only as far as is comfortable. Or ask someone else to do it while you sit.
How to Find It
Cup the back of the heel in the hand on the same side, so your fingers wrap round the outer side and your thumb lands on the inner side. Slide the thumb backward until it sits on the corner, where the round back of the heel meets its inner side. Then slide it down to the edge of the sole. That is the bottom of the band.
From there, the band follows the curve of the heel upward. Trace the outline with your thumb toward the base of the thick cord at the back of the ankle. Stop where the hard heel gives way to the springy cord.
You are on it when you feel a sharp, pinpoint tenderness in a curved line. Often one point along the curve is clearly more tender than the rest.
How to Press It
Use the tool or your thumb tip, with the fingers wrapped round the outside of the heel as a brace. This lets you squeeze rather than push. Press in toward the heel bone, hold a moment, ease off and move a few millimetres up the curve.
Walk from the sole to the cord, then lift off and start again at the bottom. Do not press on the cord itself; it is not part of the band and does not like being squeezed hard.
How Much Pressure
Firm and steady, because the skin is thick. But stop short of grinding the bone. Aim for a sharp, pinpoint tenderness that you could talk through. If you are holding your breath, ease off. If you take blood-thinning medicine or bruise easily, use half the pressure.
How Long
Three slow passes, about a minute per foot. Then the outer band on the same foot, then both bands on the other foot. Four minutes in total, longer if you add the sacrum and lower back strips. Once or twice a day is plenty.
When to Do It
Tailbone ache usually shows up when you sit, and worst of all when you lean back or get up. A good time is when you first sit down in the evening. Another is after a long drive or a long time on a hard chair. Wait at least an hour after a meal, and drink a glass of warm water afterwards.
What This Won't Do
It will not knit a cracked tailbone, straighten one that has been bent by a fall, or change the way the small joints there have set. Pressing the heel does not reach those things.
What people report is smaller. Sitting is a little less sharp. Getting up from a chair takes less bracing. The deep ache at the bottom of the spine is a little quieter in the evening. Some notice nothing for a week or two. Some notice nothing at all, and that is worth saying.
Some tailbone pain is a job for a doctor. See one if the pain began after a fall, especially if you have thin bones. The same goes for a tender, swollen or weeping lump near the top of the cleft between the buttocks, or pain with fever. Pain with changes in your bowel habit or bleeding also needs checking, as does pain that has not eased after several weeks. Numbness between the legs or loss of bladder or bowel control means an emergency department today. Pressure work sits alongside medical care and never replaces it.
Safety First
The source manual says this method is not suitable during pregnancy or while menstruating. Do not work the band within an hour after a meal.
Do not press the back of the heel if it is swollen, hot or red, or if the cord at the back of the ankle is painful. Leave cracked or broken heel skin alone and use the matching spot on the hand instead.
If you have sciatica, the first few days of pressure work can leave the area more sore. That is common and not a reason to stop. Electric pain, spreading numbness or a weak leg are different: stop and get checked.
If you have diabetes, keep a session under 10 minutes and check your feet afterwards. If feeling in your feet is reduced, ask your doctor first. If you have kidney disease, keep the glass of water to about 150 ml. Read the full safety guide before you carry on.
Questions People Ask
Where is the tailbone reflex zone on the foot? There are two, one on each side of the heel. The inner one curves around the inner back corner of the heel, running from the edge of the sole upward toward the thick cord at the back of the ankle. The outer one is its mirror on the outside of the heel.
What is the difference between this zone and the sacrum zone? Position along the heel. The sacrum strip lies low on the inner side of the heel, further forward, below the ankle bone. The inner tailbone band is further back, on the rounded corner of the heel. On the map the line runs sacrum first, then tailbone, the same order as in your spine.
Should I work one foot or both? Both. The tailbone sits in the middle of the body, so in this system it is mapped on both feet. Do the inner and outer bands on one foot, then the same on the other.
It hurts to sit since I fell. Is this zone enough? Not on its own. If the fall was recent, if you cannot sit at all, or if your bones are thin, see a doctor first so a crack can be ruled out. A soft cushion with a cut-out at the back helps most people while it settles. The foot work can sit alongside that.
Can I use a ball or roller? Not well. The band wraps around a corner, and a ball on the floor mostly reaches the bottom of the heel. If you cannot reach your feet, ask someone to cup your heel and do it for you while you sit.
How soon should I feel something? Some people notice that sitting is a little easier after the first few sessions. Others need two weeks of daily work to notice anything. Some never notice a change, and that is a fair result to expect as well.
Other Zones on the Foot
These zones sit close by on the same foot and are often worked in the same sitting.
Outer Tailbone Zone (Zone 58): Tailbone Pain Reflexology on the Heel
Outer back corner of the heel, curving from the sole up toward the heel cord
Sacrum Zone (Zone 56): The Sacrum Reflexology Point on the Foot
Inner edge of the heel, from below the inner ankle back to the heel
Lower Back Spine Zone (Zone 55): Foot Reflexology for Lower Back Pain
A strip along the inner edge of the arch, from the middle of the arch back to the bony bump in front of the inner ankle
Read More
Sources
- Nguyen Thanh Nhan. Foot reflex zone manual (Hanoi, 2020), after Gu Peide and Zhu Zuocai.
- Fitzgerald, W. H. and Bowers, E. F. Zone Therapy. Columbus: I. W. Long, 1917.
This page shares general information about a traditional practice. It is not medical advice and does not replace what your doctor has given you. If you are pregnant, managing a health condition, or unsure whether this applies to you, check with your doctor first.
The whole inner edge of the foot, laid out on one page with photographs, is in The Foot Map — the free book. For every zone on the foot, see the full foot zone index.
Prefer to work on your hands? See the hand pressure point library — 15 points you can press with your thumb, sitting in a chair.
(Zone shown: 57 · Inner tailbone zone · Khu phản xạ Xương đuôi trong.)