Sebastian Brosche · 13 min · 1,195 words
Previously titled: Video 3 - Ankle Pain Rehab
Welcome back to day three of the ankle sprain programme. We're going to start getting a bit more dynamic today. So this is the sort of thing that depending on how severe the injury was, you might start doing between one and a half to two weeks after your injury. We're going to start with another ankle mobilisation.
So I'm going to go put my hands on the upper on the mat, hips up and I'm just going to take my heels towards the mat, alternating right and left. Once again, I'm being guided by how it feels. I'm just taking it up to the edge of the discomfort. I don't want to force anything into pain.
And then from there I stand up, which should be familiar from yesterday. I'm rolling my feet in and place to find out, to test how things are feeling as well. You get to feel at what point in the movement things start to feel a bit uncomfortable. I'm going to go back and do a little bit of a roll.
And coming back up. One more time, just rolling your feet in and out. If you've got persistent ankle injuries, this is often a really good little warmup drill that you can throw in to help yourself out. So I'm going to revisit one of the exercises from yesterday, but this time I'm going to use either the edge of a mat or a book, or actually you can do this on the edge of a step on a staircase.
So I'm just going to put my toes onto the edge of the mat so my heels drop off. If this is painful at this point, then just go back to doing these on the flat. But if this feels okay, you're just going to do your calf raises. Just going up and down.
Just gives you a little bit more range to work through there. You can use a hand on a wall for balance. That's fine if you need to. If you do use a hand on a wall for balance, try not to use it for support.
Try and keep as much of the weight on your feet as you can and just use it just a touch here and there. So I'm going to mix that one up with, I'm going to use that bottom step of my staircase again, and what we're going to do is we're going to do step downs. So I'm going to start on the step, and I'm just going to touch the other foot to the floor and back up again. So you see I'm having to work my balance on that one.
I'm going to step off the step, and we're now going to go back to our single leg balance, but this time to make it more interesting, I'm going to move my opposite knee forwards and back. I'm going to go up, down. You can see that I'm suddenly having to work a lot harder to keep that position. And then take a rest there.
If you set those three exercises together, it makes quite a nice little superset. It can be quite hard work on the leg at first, so again if you need to drop a few reps when you first start, that's absolutely fine. So we're just going to go back through those three exercises again. And then straight into the step downs.
You start on the step above, step down and up. If you want to make this a smaller movement, if this feels a little bit too much to start with, you can start with a thick book and make it a smaller step. And then going back to your single leg balance. Again, you can either make this a static balance, or you can make it harder.
And forward. With ankle rehab, a lot of people use unstable surfaces like wobble boards or cushions and things to make the balancing harder. Personally, I think those have their place, but I like to, if I can, I like to challenge people by getting them to move around. So the surface is stable, but the challenge comes from moving your body around it, because for me, this replicates, this is closer to what you need to be able to do, for example, when you're wrestling or you're defending a single leg.
And then just rest. So the final thing we're going to do today is we're going to start reintroducing some jumping. Now, depending on how, what stage of recovery your ankle is at, you may want to take this very, very slowly and carefully, or you may be able to make it a little bit more dynamic. I want you to listen to your body and I want you to take it easy at first and gradually build up.
So we're going to start by introducing a jump, but without leaving the ground. So I'm going to drop my hips back, I'm going to come forward onto my tiptoes, and I'm going to come down. So I'm just going to get that feeling of up and down. And if that's okay, if my ankle is fine with that, I'm going to start introducing a slight, a slight lift.
So I'm literally just going to clear the ground and I'm going to make the landing as soft as I possibly can. Okay. Just give it up and down. Just going to start by doing that.
If that's feeling good, you can gradually increase the height. Okay. Now, if that's okay, what we can then build onto is forwards and back. So we're introducing a little bit of more momentum, a little bit more challenge when you're controlling the landing.
Okay. We're going to go forwards, stop, and then back. Yeah. So I'm not rebounding straight off it.
I'm taking my time sticking the landing and then I can jump backwards. Again, if this feels too advanced at the moment, either make it smaller or just go back to going straight up and down, or it's fine to leave this out the first time through and build up to it. Okay. When we've done that, we're going to try side to side.
Again, make it as small as you can to start with. Just going to stop, stick. I'm not going to try and go bounce straight off it, so I'm not going to try and do that too much. I'm going to stop, pause, and then come back.
As it starts feeling good, if you want to reduce the contact time, if you want to start introducing more of a rebound, that's fine, but I would really urge you to do that before you start to do the landing. Okay. So, if you're going to do the landing, if you want to start introducing more of a rebound, that's fine, but I would really urge you to start slow and steady the first time you do it. Okay.
So, we're going to stop there. That's all for day three. We'll come back tomorrow and we'll continue building on those ideas.
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