Sports & Recreation

How to prevent ankle injuries?

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  • Dec 14th, 2004 11:21 pm
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Deal Expert
Oct 20, 2001
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Sauga

How to prevent ankle injuries?

A couple of days ago, I was playing volleyball and landed on someone else's foot after I came down from a block. I rolled my ankle, and it's still swelled and painful almost 48 hours later...x-ray results should be in tomorrow to tell whether there was a fracture. In the meantime, I'm RICE-ing it.

I'm thinking of wearing these ankle braces for a little while once I'm back on the court. But from what I've read here, it's not a good idea to continue wearing the brace after the ankle begins to heal.

So what can you do about preventing this kind of injury in the future? Is it fine if I wear an ankle brace during volleyball but keep it off for other sports, so that my ankle can be protected when needed and be fully exercised at other times?
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Banned
Mar 21, 2003
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Discover the Q-Ray secret!

Shoulda been wearing a Q-Ray ionized bracelet.
Deal Guru
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Nov 19, 2002
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That sucks, Rehan. Not as much as the Q-Ray, perhaps, but it still sucks.

I rolled my ankle playing Ultimate 2 summers ago and it got bigger and bigger despite all RICE efforts for 5 days....turned out I had cellulitis in the location as well. It took about 4 months before I even tried being active again, so I went out for my friend's bball team, and in the first half of the first game, I came down on someone's foot after a rebound and did the EXACT same thing to my OTHER ankle. I almost cried....I thought my athletic career was over.

The second ankle took much less time to heal, probably due to no infection, and I spent the next few months doing lots of stabilizer exercises and slow jogging to get it back into game shape. I'm happy to say I've been through 2 ultimate seasons and a vball season with no problems. I don't believe in braces. If you actually need a brace to do something, I say don't do it. Go slow, work your way back to where you were. My sister-in-law had several braces for basically every joint in her body (ok, not quite :) ), and just kept getting injured....it's like she thought the braces would prevent any injury. I think she kept trying to return to sports too early without doing enough physio and warmup, and no she doesn't do anything. :(

So screw the braces and get your body healthy!
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Mar 17, 2004
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CA
Really, accident (shite) happens... I rolled mine playing ultimate once on a crappy grass pitch. There was a small ditch maybe a few inches deep, less than a foot in diameter. But the grass was too long so no one saw it. I promptly stepped on it and rolled it good. :confused: I've tried those soft ankle brace (not the one that you showed). It's like the soft knee brace that's elastic, but only for the ankle. It provides more support to the ankle so that it doesn't give as easily, especially coming off an ankle injury. I don't know how useful it really is. I stopped using it after a while I felt my ankle is back close to 100%
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May 17, 2004
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Markham
This is a pretty typical site and it recommends a few things that make sense.
Professional help
If the sprained ankle is still painful after a day or so, it is best to seek medical advice. See your doctor, or consult with a physiotherapist. If the ankle continues to be troublesome after treatment, perhaps an undiagnosed fracture is to blame. X-rays and/or other investigations may be required. Recurring ankle sprains need thorough investigation. Physiotherapy treatments may include:
Specialised exercise programs to improve mobility of the joint.
Exercises to strengthen the muscles surrounding the ankle (peroneal muscles).
Taping and ankle braces.
The use of a wobble board or trampoline to treat the proprioceptive deficit by encouraging balance.
I'll respectfully disagree with the previous suggestion that braces aren't worth the trouble. In my mind, you wear support (cast) for damaged bones until they heal. So why not do the same for damaged ligaments? It could be useful until you heal. If you still need a brace after the healing process, then I agree that you may want to reconsider your activities.

The last bit about proprioceptive deficits makes a lot of sense, too. I've read that when you sprain your ankle, that you can lose a degree of proprioception because nerves can be damaged at the same time. Proprioception is the ability to know where a part of your body is without looking at it (like when you kick your shoes off under your desk without looking). Since we're usually not looking at our feet when we're running around, losing proprioception would increase your risk of having another sprain. So it makes sense to do exercises that would help you recover that.

You might want see your doctor to get a referral for physiotherapy quick while OHIP is still paying a part of it.
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Nov 2, 2003
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Before you think this is a useless post, read through it... i'm saying this from personal experience...

The more you roll/twist/sprain your ankle, the less like you'll roll/twist/sprain your ankle in the future. When I first heard this I thought it was the biggest waste of my time listening to it. But after many years of high school basketball and ankle sprains, I have to say that by the end of my high school bball career, the ankle sprains were less frequent and didn't hurt at all. Once I twisted it so bad I saw the bottom of my foot as I was coming down from a rebound... got right back up and didn't feel a thing, no swelling, etc.

A nice pair of shoes do help. I had this pair of Reeboks that absolutely sucked. Then I went Nike Air Flight Gold and it was sweet.
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May 17, 2004
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actng wrote:Before you think this is a useless post, read through it... i'm saying this from personal experience...

The more you roll/twist/sprain your ankle, the less like you'll roll/twist/sprain your ankle in the future. When I first heard this I thought it was the biggest waste of my time listening to it. But after many years of high school basketball and ankle sprains, I have to say that by the end of my high school bball career, the ankle sprains were less frequent and didn't hurt at all. Once I twisted it so bad I saw the bottom of my foot as I was coming down from a rebound... got right back up and didn't feel a thing, no swelling, etc.

A nice pair of shoes do help. I had this pair of Reeboks that absolutely sucked. Then I went Nike Air Flight Gold and it was sweet.
So it sounds like what you're saying is this: you are able to see a part of your body assume anatomically incorrect positions but you can't feel it. This is supposed to be better...how?

It's great you were able to get back up with no problems... but that sounds more like a parlour trick ("Wanna see me pop my shoulder out of its socket?") than something useful to do with your ankle. It sounds like it's damaged enough that it can move more "freely" than it should, but it makes me think that it's a lot more unstable than it should be, too.

I'll second your motion for good supportive shoes, though. They can act as reinforcement for your ankle and keep it from moving in ways that it shouldn't.


Edit: Maybe the lesson isn't
The more you roll/twist/sprain your ankle, the less like you'll roll/twist/sprain your ankle in the future, but that
The more you roll/twist/sprain your ankle, the less likely you'll have feeling in your ankle in the future.
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No dude. the lesson is both.

I rolled on it less, partly cause of the new shoes but even prior to the new shoes I rolled on it less.

And when I did roll on it, it didn't hurt like it did the first time. I remember the first time, a small sprain and i was on the sideline holding my ankle for 15 minutes.
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Oct 20, 2001
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Sauga
X-ray results are in...

Good news: no fracture
Bad news: I'm developing a moderate case of arthritis :confused:
(I sprained the same ankle 20 years ago.)
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Rehan wrote:X-ray results are in...

Good news: no fracture
Bad news: I'm developing a moderate case of arthritis :confused:
(I sprained the same ankle 20 years ago.)
Thank God/goodness for small mercies, eh? Hope it gets better soon.
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actng wrote:No dude. the lesson is both.

I rolled on it less, partly cause of the new shoes but even prior to the new shoes I rolled on it less.

And when I did roll on it, it didn't hurt like it did the first time. I remember the first time, a small sprain and i was on the sideline holding my ankle for 15 minutes.
No disrespect intended.

In this case a sprain is your joint moving in a way it shouldn't, right? So with the first "small sprain," the joint and some ligaments are stretched past their limit, something tears, and it hurts like cr@p. The next time you stretch that joint past the limit..well those ligaments are already torn (or are looser) than before, so it kinda makes sense that it hurts less. Not only that, if any nerves that supply feeling to parts of the joint are damaged... well, you'll feel it even less, right?

I guess there's also a couple things to consider about your ankle "rolling less." Maybe it actually did "roll" less because you were being more careful with it. Maybe not. Maybe you weren't even aware of all the "rolls" that it took because you couldn't feel it. Or maybe you didn't have enough chances to really hurt it before you got better footwear. It's not like ankle sprains happen twice a day. Maybe you needed more time to see how often you were going to do something bad to your ankle.

I'll concede that yours is the final word on this since it was your ankle. The only reason I'm even following up your response is that it seems so hard to believe.
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bdckr wrote:It's not like ankle sprains happen twice a day.

The only reason I'm even following up your response is that it seems so hard to believe.
heheh i'll make it harder for you to believe...

I did roll it more than two times in one day. i was playing for about 4 hours and I rolled it a total of three times.

I went from rolling my ankles at least twice a week to about once every two/three months after getting rid of those clunking reeboks!

(we used to have team practice twice a week and the other two/three days we would play streetball in the public courts.) each day I played at least 3 hrs. man those were the days... rock hard abs without doing a single situp.
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Mar 30, 2002
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Rehan wrote:X-ray results are in...

Good news: no fracture
Bad news: I'm developing a moderate case of arthritis :confused:
(I sprained the same ankle 20 years ago.)
Glad to hear there's no fracture...keep it taped up tight to prevent swelling and pick up some glucosamine sulfate that will help with the arthritis
:hay:

[You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it. You want something? Go get it. Period.]
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I have to agree with actng....rolling or spraining your ankle once DOES make it more resilient in the future. Possibly more prone to rolling, but I definitely find that a minor roll during a game of ultimate doesn't affect me at all, and more major ones leave no lingering problems or pain.
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I've been using activeankle whenever I play volleyball for the past year or two. I would definitely recommend it. It has prevented my ankle from rolling several times. Most of the time it happened was because of an awkward landing after a block. Can't imagine not wearing it. And lots of my friends swear by it.

It prevents your ankle from rolling either inwards or outwards. Of course it still gives you enough sideways movement for volleyball. And it does not at all impede your forward and backward flexing of your ankle. IMO, that the best solution I came across so far, as far as prevention is concerned. Injuries happens very fast and I think its very well worth the investment.

If you wear a low collar court/tennis/running shoe, I'd definitely recommend you wear an ankle brace. Or at the very least wear a basketball shoe with a high collar.

One of the cheapest prices I found was here. http://www.canuckstuff.com/html/active.html or get the Meuller brand from national sports.
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Oct 20, 2001
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Sauga
Yeah, Canuck Stuff is where I've been getting my gear this fall (shoes, balls, etc.) and I'll be heading there for the ankle brace, too. I already have a prescription from the doctor.
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deep wrote:I have to agree with actng....rolling or spraining your ankle once DOES make it more resilient in the future. Possibly more prone to rolling, but I definitely find that a minor roll during a game of ultimate doesn't affect me at all, and more major ones leave no lingering problems or pain.
By that it seems like you are more agreed to bdckr because you did roll it (the mini-roll) but you just don't feel it, for the reason that bdckr mentioned.

good to know that there's no structural damage in your ankle, Rehan.
Deal Expert
Oct 20, 2001
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Sauga
:( I'm getting old...

I just realized that I've also had Patellar Tendonitis ("Jumper's Knee") a couple of times recently. Once was a few weeks ago at a skills clinic for volleyball, where there was a lot of jumping; and the second time was just this week as I was hopping around on one left. I guess I better pick up a knee strap from Canuck Stuff, too. :confused:
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Mar 10, 2003
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Rehan wrote:A couple of days ago, I was playing volleyball and landed on someone else's foot after I came down from a block. I rolled my ankle, and it's still swelled and painful almost 48 hours later...x-ray results should be in tomorrow to tell whether there was a fracture. In the meantime, I'm RICE-ing it.

I'm thinking of wearing these ankle braces for a little while once I'm back on the court. But from what I've read here, it's not a good idea to continue wearing the brace after the ankle begins to heal.

So what can you do about preventing this kind of injury in the future? Is it fine if I wear an ankle brace during volleyball but keep it off for other sports, so that my ankle can be protected when needed and be fully exercised at other times?

i play a lot of volleyball, wear those active ankle brace all the time, especially when you are playing with recreational players....it really does prevent injury. unfortunately for most people, they only start wearing the brace after they have been injured. people should be using those everytime they are on the volleyball court.

you should do some strengthening exercises for your ankle in order for it to get strong again. do i after the ankle is not swollen.
Mok
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Oct 20, 2001
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Mok wrote:especially when you are playing with recreational players
Yeah, recreational players who try to play above their level tend to be less disciplined around the net. :|

The swelling on the ankle is now gone, but it's still painful to move in certain directions. So I'm still taking it easy for now, but I'll start the exercises as I progress. There's good info at http://www.activeankle.com/anklecare.htm

I'm also going to try to get some physiotherapy for it.

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