I just sprained my ankle again yesterday playing basketball. I previously tore ligaments in it and its never felt quite right since. Anyway, I was looking for something to help make it stronger and came across this:
Do you reckon this stuff works?
Anyone have any other suggestions?
Jonboy,
I am just starting rehab for an ankle fracture myself. It has been a long eight weeks! Unfortunately, I was a diagnosed as having a sprain when in reality it was fractured.
I found the article here on T-Nation back from Februrary by Jimmy Smith quite informative and I think the exercises make a bit more sense than in the link you posted.
Good luck.
A great thing for ankle rehab/stability is march on a thick foam pad for 1-3 minute intervals. Credit goes to Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell for this ingenious idea!
GET AN ANKLE BRACE!!!, if your into sports get back to running, and cutting, rub your ankle stretch it, squat full range. Jump and land one foot. Jump land one foot run in all directions.
[quote]JONBOY-UK wrote:
Anyway, I was looking for something to help make it stronger and came across this:
Do you reckon this stuff works?[/quote]
It depends on your problem but that sort of stuff was very helpful to me. Go see a specialist (I think you call them kinesiologists over there?) and they will show you how to properly strap so that an injury doesn’t re-occur but you can still get stronger.
I have a DARD, it’s great. There’s an article on T-Nation on how to make one if you don’t want to spend the money and buy one.
There are also some light plyometric exercises that are good for strengthening the ankle. (i.e. jump from side-to-side on on the same foot).
Even with all I do, whenever I play volleyball, I wear an Active Ankle. Depending on the intensity of the pick-up game, I may or may not wear a brace.
I think it’s important just to do things barefoot. Once you’re able, start out slow and just progress from walking, to maybe some light hops, etc, until you’re back. Also take the other posters’ advice.
Guys, Thanks for the responses. My ankle is pretty much recovered I think. The swelling has dissapeared nearly completely since last week (when I injured it). I guess it was only a minor sprain but it still looked like it had a tennis ball lodged in it from the swelling so I was a bit worried.
The injury itself was the result of receiving something more like a rugby tackle in a basketball game, not from general play really. You can bet I’ll be more prepared next time for that sort of play.
So general consensus is:
Wear some support for the ankle in competition
Do various plyometric drills to improve force absorption and the like, sometimes bare foot
Use a DARD
I already squat full range and I will try out some of the exercises in the articles mentioned.
While it is now starting to feel healed, your fun is only just beginning.
What happens, if it’s a proper sprain, is that it never fully recovers properly. Depending on the location of the damage other parts of your ankle will have to compensate for that weakness.
A small part of my recovery was strengthening the peroneal muscle (NOT the perineum muscle, unfortunately, that would have been more fun to work on) to take over the duties of the injured ligament (or was it tendon? I forget).
The bigger part was restoring proprioception. What I found was that my reflexes in that ankle were slowed and that I would roll my ankle doing simple things, like walking in soft soil in the garden.
The DARD drills restore that connection so that you don’t get minor injuries doing stuff you used to take for granted.
The good news (for me at least) was that my injured ankle became so good on the DARDs that it made my uninjured ankle look bad (so I had to bring that up to match).
My physio showed me a simple taping method that still allows full movement while running with the ball, but provides support if I roll the ankle. So far I haven’t tested it in a real injury situation, I suspect the tape would come undone if it were serious, but it would stop a mid-level injury turning into a serious injury (if that makes sense).