Ankle Pain

If you've recently injured your ankle or have been struggling with pain in the area, you know how frustrating it can be. The ankle is a tough spot to have an injury because it's very difficult to avoid using it.

When an injury happens, common thinking and our instincts tell us to stop using it, ice it, and let it rest. While these are the correct actions immediately following the injury, before long they can become a detriment to your ability to recover. 

Our body's process for dealing with an injury is to cause inflammation and tighten up the surrounding musculature, because immobilizing the area is the best way to avoid hurting it more. However, the longer you allow the area to stay that way, the harder it will be to get back to full strength. 

Even a day after the injury, the best course of action is to actually start moving. You don't need to go out and run a marathon, but just doing the simple exercises in the video will go a long way to increasing blood flow and mobilization in the area, accelerating your recovery. It will also help with pain, because trying to go about your normal activities with a swollen and immobile ankle can be extremely difficult. 

Once the exercises in the video become easier and swelling starts to decrease, you can introduce weights to the movements and incorporate more weight bearing activities.

Follow these steps instead of resorting to indefinite rest, and you'll find your body will be able to recover and get back to 100% much quicker.