Watch This To Avoid Ankle Sprain or Strain!

Hey Everybody Dr. Greg Spooner. Physical therapist here, with you, for a quick tip for those that keep spraying their ankles.

If you feel like, maybe one of your ankles is a little weaker than the other, and over the years you get some ankle sprains on the same side. Over and over again well, there's a straightforward thing that you can do to help that work better, and to help reduce the likelihood that this is going to happen again.

Now. There was a study that I had read last year, that was looking at a group of football players who had a history of recurrent ankle sprains. After a period of two weeks, balancing on one foot on a squishy foam pad, they found that the likelihood of their re-sprain was 70 % less. 

That is fantastic for something so simple and so straightforward. Provided that you are not presently injured, that you can perform a single leg balance without any sharp pain or discomfort, and that your balance isn't putting you in any sort of danger. This is something that you can absolutely try at home. So here's what you need. You need a floor.

You need something squishy like a couch cushion, you need you and you need a timer. It's pretty self-explanatory. Now five minutes, you may think at first yeah. It's not that bad! It's five minutes, but just wait until you're on the cushion and you're standing there you're trying to balance. That five minutes all of a sudden starts to slow down and it takes a lot longer than you think.

Now I don't want you to fall over and hit your head, so if you need to have a chair nearby that you can put your hand on to regain your balance before taking it off again do so. What you can also do if you're concerned about falling this way, or that way you can find a corner and actually back yourself into the corner, put that cushion down and then bring a chair right up in front of you. You have a wall on either side and a chair right in front of you. You can stand up on one foot, balance three or five minutes and, if need be, put your hands back on the wall or forward on the chair.

It's all about safety when we're doing our rehab. We don't want to cause any new problems, but that should hopefully be a fairly straight forward routine, that you can work into your day over the next couple of weeks, and let me know how it goes. Let me know if it's helpful or not helpful. Leave a comment below subscribe, so you can make sure that you hear any of our other quick tips that come up, but I'm definitely interested in sharing some more with you and then likewise having you share with me.