Climbing, snowboarding, trail-running, dangerous cellar stairs—they can all mean bad ankle sprains, and sometimes surgery. And crutches … in the winter. While your friends huck themselves off massive cliffs and snorkel in fresh pow, you embark on what you like to call Daily Extreme Crutching (fighting desperately not to wipe out on the snow and ice each time you step out of your front door with your crutches).
After you survive the crutching, and your doc gives you the OK to strengthen-up, it’s time to get your ankle back in shape.**
Basic Exercises
Going Down
Going down stairs can be difficult at first because your flexibility and strength aren’t back yet. Stand with the injured foot on some phone books (or the edge of a stair), and hold on to the wall or railing for balance if you need to. Keep the heel of your injured foot down, point the toes of your strong foot up, and slowly lower the strong foot, hold for 15 seconds, then bring it back up. Repeat 20 times, 2 times a day.
Heel Stretch
For a good heel stretch, stand with your strong foot on the phone books or stair, hang half of your injured foot off, hold on to the wall or a railing, and slowly lower the heel of the injured foot. Hold for 5 minutes, then come back up. Just go as far as a gentle stretch. Repeat 3 or 4 times a day.
The Alphabet Trace is a good motion exercise to get your ankle used to moving in all directions. Just sit in a chair, with your injured foot off the ground, and trace each letter of the alphabet with your foot. You can also do the next two exercises (Side to Side & Forward and Back) without any resistance at first, just to regain motion.
Side to Side
For side-to-side strength, grab a band (some sports stores sell them, or a local PT office), and loop it around the ball of your foot. Hold the ends of the band out to the side, or tie them to a couch leg, and slowly push the foot forward and out, away from the inside of your leg. Slowly bring the foot back, and repeat. Then reverse the band (pull it out to the opposite side) and repeat. This time you’ll be pushing down and in toward the inside of your leg.
If you don’t have a band, you can sit next to a wall (or couch), place your foot against the wall, and push against the wall.
Forward and Back
For forward and backward motion, loop the band around the ball of your foot and hold the ends. Slowly push your foot away from your body, then bring it back. As you get stronger, you can make the resistance stronger.
More Challenging Exercises
The Soccer-ball Twirl:
Balance on your injured leg and, using your uninjured foot, guide the ball around your injured foot 10 times clockwise, then 10 times counterclockwise.
The Rocker is simple and can be done anywhere. Just put your hands on a table or chair to balance, rock back on your heels, and lift your toes. Stay for six seconds, then roll back down. Then push up on both toes and hold for six seconds, then roll back down.
The Pillow
The Pillow helps strengthen the stabilizing muscles in your ankle. Put one or two pillows on the floor, and balance on your injured foot. Hold on to the wall at first if you need to.
A word on shoes. If need to wear a lace-up brace or a wrap around your ankle for a few weeks, and it’s uncomfortable to stuff all that into a shoe, you might have to get creative. If you go the flip-flop route in the winter, here’s a quick anti-slip suggestion. Ask around to see if any of your friends have recently bought new skins for ski-touring, and if they have any excess pieces from trimming the skins. You can cut the pieces and apply them to the bottom of your flip.
The Flip
Wearing a toe-sock (sleeves for each toe) under your wrap is nice, too. Or, slip-on shoes, like Sanuks, have wide cuffs that can work with wraps.
**Consult your doc first before kicking your crutches, doing strengthening exercises, going down a set of stairs with your skis on, etc. These exercises are suggestions and not meant to take the place of PT, a doctor’s orders, or the futuristic swap-your-ankle-for-a-new-one android technology we are patiently waiting for.
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Tags: ankle exercises, ankle sprains, How To, how to recover from a sprain
Nice post, there is some very useful stuff here!
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