Getting back into exercising - pain in top of foot

[FritzyMousey]

I had a few months off of exercising due to painful feet and ankles which I put down to doing too much high impact exercise. I saw a physio at the time who confirmed this. I have now been back exercising quite low impact (cross trainer/weight training) and the pain is starting to come back again, just the tops of the feet so far. Has anyone else had this that can offer some advice? I don't think it's due to bad footwear as I walked a lot in Birkenstocks on holiday and didn't get the pain, and I have new good quality Nike trainers which I am wearing at the gym.
The pain is the top of my feet, like a constant low ache not noticeably swollen. I'm thinking possibly I need to build up the muscles around my ankles, could this be it? Should I try ankle supports?

I got a pain in the tops of my feet when I first started running. It's an odd place to get aches isn't it?!

Anyway, aside from making sure you have well fitting shoes that are not tied too tightly (which you seem to have covered) mine was basically just down to being unfit, not used to doing exercise.

The more I exercised, the more the ache went away. Basically I just pushed through it.

It is an odd place to ache! Last time when I was consistently exercising it travelled to my ankles as well. Do you just do running or have you done anything else to strengthen the muscles?

Could you have arthritis, if you did lots of high impact exercise before? In which case it won’t go away and more high impact exercise will just make it worse. I’d get it checked out via gp/X-ray if I were you (this has just happened to me ...)

I'm really hoping it's muscular and not arthritis :( Do you have arthritis in your feet? Is the pain on the top of the feet? The pain went away when I had a break from exercising, I'm now only doing low impact and it is starting to come back.

Do you just do running or have you done anything else to strengthen the muscles?

I just do running. But I run (at least 5k) every day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Back when I had top-of-the-foot pain was when I was just starting running, doing C25K (but doing it every day, rather than only 3 days a week). I had a BMI of 35 back then, so well into obese and this was the first regular exercise I'd done in over a decade. So I suspect it was just down to being unfit and obese.

The only thing I did to strengthen the muscles was to run more - faster pace and longer distances.

I have prominent, bony arches which feel bruised from pressure easily so I skip the laces on that part of the foot and use a lace lock to secure the shoe at the ankle.