Top 3 Exercises to Recover Fast From an Ankle Sprain
The common ankle sprain is one of THE most common injuries in sports.
Yet, it's also the one injury that everyone just shrugs their shoulders at and tell themselves "it will be better in 3 weeks".
Or "I'll just play through it".
Then half the season goes by and the athlete is still complaining about their ankle as they try to just "push through it and continue playing."
It's Ludicrous!
If you want to quickly lose athleticism. Injure your ankle!
Run, Jump, Change Directions....They all take a significant amount of force transfer from the ankle quickly into the ground. If your ankle hurts, you won't put much force into the ground. If you don't put more force into the ground, your not going to be very athletic!
Simple as that...
Yet, athletes continue to just "play through an ankle sprain" hoping it will just "get better on it's own". They sit at home icing the ankle while they watch TV and complain about how their game is taking a hit because they are not as athletic either due to ankle pain, weakness, or instability is still persisting.
If you know what your doing, you can quickly return to sport after an ankle sprain.
If you really know what you are doing you can quickly return to sport without feeling like you lost any of your athleticism because your ankle DOES NOT feel unstable, weak, or god forbid still painful.
The problem is that many people and even doctors or trainers/rehab clinicians believe that you should just rest, ice, perform a couple mind numbingly boring banded ankle exercises, then stand and balance on a blue foam pad and that's what they call rehab...
Here are my Top 3 tips for healing from an ankle sprain faster while staying athletic:
1) If you know there is not a fracture (Ottawa ankle rules) then DON'T rest. Now that doesn't mean go play basketball if you are currently in a lot of pain. It simply just means get the ankle moving. Even if it's just moving your ankle in small circles...Do something to get the mobility back in the ankle. Isometrics are THE most effective way to start! Whether you have pain with small little movements of the ankle or you have decent mobility in the ankle, isometrics are SIGNIFICANTLY under utilized for ankle sprains.
2) Use light compression to the ankle throughout the day and occasional intermittent periods of heavier compression (2-5 minutes) multiple times per day to help push the swelling up and out of the ankle. Contrary to popular belief swelling is a necessary evil. It's an after effect of the chemical changes that happen within the body to jump start the healing process. You aren't going to prevent swelling with ice. The trick is removing the swelling FASTER and not letting it become stagnant around the joint. The two ways you do that is keep the ankle moving and the blood/lymphatic system pumping (see tip #1). The second way is using compression to help push the swelling up and away from the joint for removal.
3) Start working on the ankle's motor control on day ONE. A big reason why people never get confidence in their ankle again is because they have lost their ability to effectively relay sensory information from the ground quickly to help assist with balance and coordination of movement. A very important part of the foot is to feel the ground underneath of you and sense changes in terrain or anticipate movements in various different directions so the foot can properly position itself on the ground to propel you in that particular direction. After an injury to the ankle, it's ability to do this become impaired and often this component never gets addressed so it causes lingering problems and contributes to frequent reoccurring ankle sprains. The easiest way to start working this quality is perform exercises with your eyes closed. Now standing/balancing exercises with your eyes closed is most effective, but if you currently are unable to do them because of pain. Then when you move your ankle in circles while sitting you can still close your eyes and consciously try to visualize how much range of motion the ankle is going through. The video above shows another one of my favorite exercises for ankle stability.
So there you have it. 3 Tips to get back to your sport FASTER without feeling less athletic after an ankle sprain!
As you can see all of these tips were qualities that you can be working on day 1 after ankle sprain providing their was no fracture. If you would like a full system which takes you from day 1 ankle sprain and walks you all the way through high level exercises to help avoid frequent, nagging, and annoying sprains from occurring in the future then check out Ankle Sprain Answer!
