recovering from rolled ankles

The exercises & techniques to keep your body healthy for footbag.
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janis
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recovering from rolled ankles

Post by janis » 18 Jun 2007 19:50

As soon as you have rolled your ankle the most important thing is to ice it immediately, and keep icing it for 24 hours. Remember to RICE (rest ice compress elevate). It's very important to keep swelling down in this initial period. You can also use anti-inflammatories for a few days after the initial injury to keep inflammation down, but don't use them for any long period of time, it will get in the way of your recovery if you do.

If you can, go and see a doctor or a physiotherapist immediately.

Outlined below are the exercises my physiotherapist gave me for strengthening the ankle after rolling it. These exercises are intended for people with minor ankle rolls/strains or people interested in general ankle strengthening. If you have a serious ankle injury go and see a specialist immediately, these exercises may make your situation worse if your ankle injury is serious.

Make sure that you are really confident with the easier exercises before moving onto the harder ones, jumping ahead is asking for trouble. Just like footbag you want to build up slowly to the harder stuff.

These exercises fatigue the ankle, so don't do them before a footbag session or other strenuous exercise for that matter.

Try the exercises in this order:
1. Balance on the foot for 1 minute, arms crossed.

2. Balance on the foot 1 minute, arms crossed, eyes closed. The first few times you do this you may want to hold onto a chair/rail to build up confidence.

3. Raise up onto your toes, slowly, the raising motion is like going for a datw or tatw, but much slower. You raise up from a flat foot until you are on the balls of your toes. Do 15-20 repetitions on the injured leg, immediately afterwards, do it on the non injured foot, then repeat.

4. hopping, hop only on the the same foot for 30 seconds, hop on the other foot for 30 seconds> rpt.

After doing exercises 3&4 make sure to stretch out your calf muscles:
Image
note: ease into this stretch slowly, you should try to relax your calf muscle and point the knee towards the ground a bit. Only go as far with the stretch as is comfortable and hold the stretch until the stiffness/pain subsides.

5. Put a pillow on the ground and balance on top of the pillow with your eyes open, arms crossed, for 1 minute.
Image
note: an ordinary pillow is fine, but be sensible.


6. With your eyes closed: raise up onto your toes, slowly, the raising motion is like going for a datw or tatw, but much slower. You raise up from a flat foot until you are on the balls of your toes. Do 15-20 repetitions on the injured leg, immediately afterwards, do it on the non injured foot, then repeat. When you are starting this one it's good to hold onto a chair or a rail to build up confidence, progress to doing it free-standing. Do the calf stretches after this one

7. Put a pillow on the ground and balance on top of the pillow with your eyes closed, arms not crossed, for 1 minute.

8. Put a pillow on the ground and balance on top of the pillow with your eyes closed, arms crossed, for 1 minute. The first few times you do this you may want to hold onto a chair/rail to build up confidence.

After doing these exercises It might also be good to stretch out your ankle: So using your hands (keep the cranking muscles relaxed), crank your ankle a bit until you feel a bit of a stretch. Ease into the stretch slowly hold the stretch until the pain or stiffness subsides.


That's pretty much it for these generic exercises, ultimately you should go and see a specialist for these sorts of problems especially if you suspect that there is ligament damage. If you feel excessive pain while doing any of these, stop and go to see a physiotherapist.

When recovering from an ankle injury it might be a good idea to lay off some of the more strenuous ankle cranking moves(walkovers, frigid, zooming, etc) for a while until you are confident in your ankle's strength.

Best of luck with your recovery.

janis
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Post by janis » 29 Nov 2007 03:32

bump,


did anyone read this? anyone have comments?

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Post by jay7 » 29 Nov 2007 04:23

I just read it, and will try all of this out tonight.

Thanks Janis :)
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Post by ShredOnLawn » 05 Dec 2007 08:18

I agree. Sound advice.

Also eat a lot of turmuric(in mustard) and consider taking MSM with Glucosamine and Chondroitin.

Walking should be carefully mastered. Especially on the injured area.

It took me almost a year to do clean walkovers again on my slightly rolled ankle. I had a few re-rolls throughout the year.
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Post by Wasabi » 02 Mar 2008 01:46

I didn't know where to ask this, but...

I have permanent damage on my ankle. Well, it's not serious, as I was told from my foot specialist, but the ligament strips covering the outer region of my ankle is slightly stretched and torn. I was told and recommended to wear an ankle brace for every session I played, and she mentioned lace-up elastic braces.

I was just wondering, do any footbaggers use this type of brace? Where you lace through eyelets on the brace and tie it like shoelaces? Are there flexible ones with good support, even with removable plastic/metal stays? I was thinking of buying one that is widely used by soccer players, like this one, but I wanted to see what footbaggers recommend (if possible) for things like this.
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Post by mc » 02 Mar 2008 10:31

ask tuan vu. he's on my friend list on myspace. He has had famously injured ankles for a long time, so if anyone knows how to deal with that injury, it's him.
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Post by Frank_Sinatra » 03 Mar 2008 10:24

I've used a brace like that and it certainly was an improvement over what I had been using (air cast) in terms of recovery and comfort.

That being said, it wasn't something I could shred in. A brace is going to restrict your movement by design. The more support it provides, the more your range of movement will be diminished. IMO a lace up brace will not provide sufficient range of movement to kick. Well, maybe enough for basic toe to toe stuff.

Not sure what the equipment you need is, or if it even exists. Ace bandages will allow much fuller range of motion, but also provide negligible support.

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Post by Wasabi » 03 Mar 2008 10:48

I've tried Neoprene, elastic, and even Velcro ankle braces with steel stays on each side of my ankle. I know the whole deal about adding further support will restrict ankle crank.

I think I have decent ankle crank. I can clap the soles of my feet together with my legs extended straight, if that can give you a good idea about anything. Although, I don't believe ankle crank is anything important when it comes to proper clipper form (since over-cranking can be disputed as problematic).

Frank, do you think it's possible to have a bit of crank with the lace-up brace? I'm thinking of investing one without any steel or plastic stays, and I think this might be a good investment for footbag support.

Matt, I just found out that Tuan Vu has a facebook account. :wink: I did a whole search for some legendary names in the footbag world, and it just seems that some have accounts on facebook for some reason. Awesome! :lol: :P
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Post by Frank_Sinatra » 03 Mar 2008 15:22

Wasabi wrote:Frank, do you think it's possible to have a bit of crank with the lace-up brace? I'm thinking of investing one without any steel or plastic stays, and I think this might be a good investment for footbag support.
The one I used had a steel support on each side that I think could be removed. I didn't remove them. I'd guess that it still would have been pretty restrictive.

BTW, just so we can be sure we're talking about the same thing, here's a picture similar to the one I used:

Image

Although mine didn't go as far towards the toes. Like picture that, but without the lowermost two eyelets & lacing on each side. The laces stopped at the top of my foot and there was a velcro stirrup that velcroed together under the heel/arch area. It isn't just the steel, its the stiff canvas (or whatever its made of) and the tightness of the brace, that is restrictive.

I don't think the issue is how much crank you normally have, because you will be restricted regardless. Vasek would be restricted in one of these things. I bet it would be really hard to clipper in this brace, like you'd have to clipper up high & position your whole lower leg & foot entirely with your knee, and then you would most likely have issues with controlling the set.

I guess you've already tried the other lace-less models so I'm not sure what to tell you. But I wouldn't recommend one of these to play in. Maybe a more flexible neoprene brace while you kick, and then put the lace-up brace on when you aren't kicking?

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Post by janis » 03 Mar 2008 16:09

after my ankle injury I taped up my ankle, I couldn't really clipper on that side but it enabled to do toe to toe moves and the other clipper. It's not such a great idea to keep wearing the brace for a long period of time outside footbag, because your muscles won't get stronger. Try doing the strengthening exercises before going to sleep as often as you can.

Also you might want to consider playing barefoot a bit, because there is less strain on your ankles without shoes and it is much harder to roll your ankle.

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Post by dyalander » 12 Mar 2008 16:54

My understanding - having spoken to a range of physio's and podiatrists is that the jury is out on when to use braces. Some view them as preventative measures - other's really dislike them because reliance on braces can potentially hinder recovery and development.
My personal experience (note: i am NOT a proffessional and I would certainly not act on any of this without consulting one) having had chronic ankle problems for a period of some 5 years -is that using a brace (lace up like the one in your picture - with plastic inserts on either side to prevent rolling) hindered my recovery because I was using it to allow me to get back to strenuous activity before I had fully recovered. It also stopped me from using the muscles and ligaments I needed to strengthen.

I found that sticking to a regimented strengthening routine not unlike the one outlined at the top of the thread - combined with careful progression back into footbag - has got my ankle back in very good shape. I do not wear a brace and continue to do specific ankle excercises even though I have not had a sprain in a couple of years.

Those braces are specifically designed to prevent crank. If you could clipper in it - either from the outset or because you're not lacing it up fully or for whatever reason - it's not going to prevent you from spraining your ankle so its not really going to perform the job it is intended for. I'd explain exactly what I wanted to be able to do to my phisio - to the point of showing him/her footbag in person so s/he can see the crank required and the specific stress involved and see if s/he still says to wear a brace.

The only excersice not mentioned that I found useful was skipping.
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Post by Sergey » 31 Aug 2008 17:04

Just found this great videos, check it out:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B1XvEbJUKE[/youtube]
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Post by EddieWins » 06 Sep 2008 22:54

Oh wow this is grerat advice here!

I roll my ankles all the time while shredding!

I think it's great how all the people on this board understand that we can recover and heal our own injuries, ourselves instead of what those whack-job scientists will tell you that we should be letting our rolled ankles slowly kill us, as so other less injury prone footbagers will mate with the hotties (shreditas) and carry on their so-called dominant genes.

pish posh!!
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Post by bell22 » 22 May 2010 20:08

well, I play soccer most of the time and when I did hurt my ankle, I usually do such exercise. It's really good for recovery. Thanks.

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Post by Reid » 29 May 2010 20:10

Reid wrote:my ankle after swelling had gone down a few years ago
Image

Just takes time and slowly developing mobility and strength back in it. The ankle may never be 100 percent (mine for sure still is not), but it can be playable again. Once the pain was tolerable I spent many hours spelling the abc and counting to 100 with my ankle. A good warm up also helps get some of the crank back. After a week of RICE, I didn't wrap unless it was unbearable to apply pressure.
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