Beyond the Band Ankle Stability

Hey, Jennifer, and today I want to talk about ankle rehab and how to take it a step further than what happens a lot of times. Like when we search online for what to do, or something like that.

So let’s say you rolled your ankle and you want to rehab it. What you might find online, if you do some Googling, is to do ankle alphabets. Or just circles and range of motion. And that’s great in the acute stage when any sort of resistance or weight bearing exercise might be a little bit too much. Then what is often suggested is to add a band and do exercises into the band. So like pointing toes down, kind of curling in, and pulling out. And then even pulling up. So that is also a great thing to do in the early stages, when you can’t really tolerate a whole lot else.

But to get to the next level, you don’t want to stop there. Which is what a lot of people do. Our ankles are usually in use the most when we’re standing and bearing weight. So we want to work on stability and strength and that fine motor control when you’re standing. And not just sit here and do band all day forever, because you demand more of your ankle.

So I have a few exercises I would recommend. You’ll want a weight and then a couple of books or weight plates or yoga blocks or something that you could stand on. The first step, after you sprained an ankle, and you’ve done all the banded work, is just seeing if you can, stand on one leg. Once that feels pretty stable, then we can start working on some additional challenges to work on that stability.

• What you can do is hold the weight and rotate side to side. You’ll feel how that really makes your ankle and foot muscles move to stabilize you.
• Similarly, passing the weight side to side, throwing off your balance with the weight working to stabilize yourself there.
• And then another one I really like is making a bridge with your foot between two books, or yoga blocks. Make sure the ball of your foot is supported and you’re not just hanging on with your toes. And then your heel is going to be on the other book, nothing under the arch of your foot. You can do a lot of things here. So you can do the same
  exercises, and this ups the challenge level. Or you could do some other exercises, like a split squat. Or a single leg. RDL. Again, you would want to do these without foot bridging first.
• You can also try an eccentric step down. So standing on the books and then dipping down towards the floor.

But those are all ways to take your ankle rehab and stability work to the next level that goes beyond the band. So I hope you found this informative. And if you’re working on your ankle stability and you’ve been working on the band for a while, it’s time to take it to weight bearing.