You’ve sprained or strained your ankle-so what do you do?
Here is one of the stretches you need to be doing on a daily basis:
- Get a wastebasket that covers your calf, fill it withcold water, and put your sore leg in. Start’pumping’ yourfoot up and down in the water.
- As you do this, add ice, (a couple of hands full at a time), and add morewhen the ice melts. Repeat this step until the ice stops melting (about 15-20 minutes.) Yourleg/calf/foot should be pretty numb by then.
- Dry your leg off andget to a step. With the’ball’ of your sore foot/ankle on the step drop your heel until-and only until you feel tension-stop, breath, relax and wait for the tension to completely let go-then drop your heel again and repeat the process.
There is no time limit-your body will decidehow quickly your calf/heel cord will release.
- When you’re done with this release, put yourrunning shoe on and rollyour ankle to the outside. Follow the same protocol as you did with theheel cord.n
- Whenyou’re done with that, do the same to the inside of the foot.
This stretch is gradually releasing the muscle and fascia that attach to the ankle because almost always they are the problem and the ankle is the symptom!
If this doesn’t completely take care of the problem, call us and get in to see ASAP at one of our locations.
The sooner you get treatment the quicker you can be back on the field or court. Many clients with grade 1 & 2 sprains have been able to get back to their sport the next day-some even the same day-so don’t delay! The longermovement is restricted the longer it may take to get back to 100%.
We understand that this is not what “the Book” says-but the hundreds of athletes we’ve gotten back playing in days instead of weeks.