Ankle Rehabilitation Exercises

Mark Perren-Jones From The Haven Spa and Health Clinic

As promised here are the ankle rehab exercises to get you back to your daily activities. I will assume you have been using the RICE regime for the first 48 hours to decrease the inflammation and now as the tissues begin to form we need to encourage a strong and healthy repair process.

If you have read some of my other posts on injuries you will know that the main reason that injuries do not fully repair is from lack of appropriate rehabilitation. It’s not from lack of ultrasound, lack of bracing, lack of laser therapy, lack of chiropractic help nor is it lack of any other therapy. You must get the injured area moving as soon as possible after the initial inflammatory phase is over (after 48 hours).

So here are some exercises you want to start doing. Make sure that you do all of them so that they are safe and pain free. These exercises are in progressions so you will work up to the ones further down the list. You don’t want to go re-injuring your ankle. Do them 3-4 times per day and if you feel fine doing them, then increase to 6 times a day.

Remember: the key aspects to rehabilitation of a sprained ankle so that you avoid respraining them are strengthening the eversion muscles( the muscles you use when you turn your ankle bringing your little toe towards the outside of the knee-the opposite diction to the way you twisted it) and proprioception exercises ( basically balance skills).

So before you start make sure that you are careful, do each exercise so that it is done safely and in control at all times. These are the basics of the exercises but you can make up your own as well. Challenge your balance skills so that your proprioceptors reawaken and do double the amount of eversion exercises (turning outside of foot up) to inversion exercises (turning inside arch upwards)

• Point your toe down and up 10 times.
• Turn your foot inwards 5 times and then outwards 10 times( as if you were trying to touch your little toe to the outside of your knee-there are 10 of these and not 5 because you want to be strengthening this direction a lot more as it is the area of weakness from the sprain)
• Start riding a stationary bike if you have one
• Write the alphabet in the air with your foot
• As soon as you can, hold onto something for support ad do calf raises. Start with doing 5 and see how it feels, and then if you feel ok gradually build up more repetitions. Make sure when you do these that the pressure is on your first and second toes, you don’t want your foot rolling outwards towards the little toes. You must strengthen the area so do your calf raises with your weight centred over your big and second toes at all times.
• Do calf raises and hold for increasing amounts of time.
• When you can stand on one foot, keeping your weight well balanced. Also try moving the other leg around in the air to challenge the ankle that’s holding your weight up.
• Walk around on your toes keeping your weight over the first and second toes at all times.
• Stand on a pillow and do calf raises on both feet, then on one foot
• Gently hop.
• Stand on one leg with your eyes closed
• Walk sideways, then backwards
• Hop front to back then side to side
• Stand on one leg whenever you can to attain better balance

You may also like to read my article on sprained ankles-the rehab secret and decrease your risk of ankle injuries.