Let’s talk about ankle sprains!
Did you know that 85% of ankle sprains are inversion sprains, the dominant leg is 2.4 times more likely to be injured than the non-dominant leg and the greatest predictor of injury is previous sprains? By providing exercises we hope to prevent further injuries, so if you have moderate pain then follow some of these tips to get back to working normal.
The first part is managing pain and swelling. With ankle sprains you can have pain, swelling, difficulty weight bearing, and might have bruising. In the first stage we want to use the NICE principle for symptom management: NSAIDS, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. The first 3 days of this injury are typically the most painful, so make sure to avoid the activity that caused the injury and any activities that cause pain.
Begin by performing mobility exercises such as a knee to wall exercise. Begin by standing and facing the wall, put your toes against the wall, and slowly bring your knee to the wall. Move your foot away from the wall until you find a point where your knee barely touches the wall and mark where your toes are with tape. Perform this three times on each side for a total of 30 seconds holds. Use the tape to measure your improvements each day!
Strength comes next! Resisted eversion with a band is a great open-chain exercise for this, which means there is no weight bearing on the ankle. In a seated position, place a resistance band around your feet so that the band is trying to pull your feet inwards, and work on turning the feet outward. This helps strengthen the fibularis muscle on the lateral side of our lower leg, which supports the area of the lateral ankle that gets stretched with a sprain.
