Ankle Sprains

We've all had one and they can be just as debilitating short term, as a serious joint injury. It's very hard to run and kick with 1 leg.

There are 2 kinds of sprains.

The most common is the lateral ankle sprain which stretches and tears the ligaments of the outer shin. The peroneals muscle group runs down the lateral side of the lower leg and it's job is to quickly activate and prevent inversion by contracting fast and powerfully enough to straighten the foot before the ankle rolls in. When it is not trained to do so, which is often the case, a more serious sprain is the result.

The less common one is a medial ankle sprain which is very rare but if anyone remembers the Jason Snell injury from the 90's, this is definately one you don't want to do but it's a luck of the draw for the most part.

If you have had an ankle sprain in the past or recently, then it's a great idea to grab a theraband and do some inversion reps for 10 sets of 10secs each day.

If you had a medial ankle sprain then do band eversions for 10 x 10secs daily.

I suggest just doing both anyway and you can do them in between sets of other exercises without them affecting your workout.

Bosu balls and discs are good for initial rehab to improve proprioception for message relaying efficiency but after that you really need to hammer home the single leg work (split squats, reverse lunges, dynamic lunges, single leg romanian deadlifts etc) to really get the stabilisers working under a decent load.