Whether you have a new ankle sprain or an old injury that never healed properly, your ankles will be weak, unstable and have poor range of motion. If you don’t heal that ankle properly, this can set you up for a lifetime of frustration and pain.
For example, if your ankles are stiff and weak, then you will lose agility and balance while also increasing your risk of more sprained ankles. And every time you sprain it again, it will get even more weak and unstable. It’s a brutally painful cycle of injury that is extremely common.
Unfortunately, in people’s desperation for a quick and easy solution, most people rely on ankle braces, but there’s a HUGE problem with this. Let me show you what I mean… Go ahead and move your ankle around as much as possible right now…
Can you see how mobile it is? It can move in all directions right? Like a ball in a socket… Now, try to move your knee around. Can you do it? Nope! Here’s why…
Your ankle is a mobile joint and the knee (the next joint in the body) is meant to be a stable joint. So, what you want to do is make sure the ankle joint is mobile and strong, so it can move naturally and safely. But, if you mess around with the way the body naturally works and use ankle braces, you will be immobilizing the ankle.
That means when you go to move, the body will try and get that mobility from the next joint up the kinetic chain, the knee… And if the knee moves more than a few degrees, it will tear. That’s why we see so many non-contact ACL and MCL tears in the knee.
And it doesn’t stop there… you could also be setting yourself up for hip injuries or low back pain. The reason is that the second you change the natural movement of your body from the base (the feet and ankles), it will affect everything above it. If you want to learn more about this, please check out our article on ankle braces.
Instead of damaging ankle braces, we strongly suggest ankle therapy, which is a combination of the best techniques to systematically eliminate swelling naturally and then, the most effective ankle exercises to strengthen and stabilize that ankle safely and naturally.
Ankle Therapy
A great ankle therapy program that helps you achieve strong and stable ankles with good mobility has multiple benefits:
- It will fully heal your ankle and eliminate any chronic pain
- It will increase speed, agility, and balance
- It protects your knees and other joints
- You will dramatically decrease your risk of future ankle sprains
- You will NOT need any ankle braces, wraps or tape, which slow you down and expose the knee to a high risk of injury
The best ankle therapy is the kind that uses a holistic approach to healing an ankle injury. That means MUCH MORE than a few random ankle exercises on the internet. You need a complete approach to remove swelling, any residual scar tissue and repair any neuromuscular damage from the injury.
First, you need to eliminate swelling and pain safely and quickly. Then, you need safe and effective ankle exercises to regain your natural mobility and protect you from future injury.
Remember, it’s all about choosing the right exercises, but also learning the specific form that will rebuild your ankle properly. In other words, if you just rely on any old ankle exercise, you might be doing more harm than good.
For example, doing a regular calf raise won’t be of much help to you. Here’s why…
The way you walk is most likely contributing to your weak and unstable ankle. You need to re-learn how to walk correctly and the calf raise can be an excellent tool to start re-training your body to move naturally and safely.
Proper movement is based on a natural balance of your muscles. If some of the muscles get too strong and others are weak, then it will through you out of whack. When it comes to the feet, ankles and calves, there are very specific muscle imbalances that HAVE to be corrected.
So, if you put your weight on the wrong areas of your calf, you could actually be training your body to make things worse by strengthening muscles that are already too strong and tight.
In other words, part of the answer is doing the right ankle exercises, but an even more important part is making sure you use the right form to train your body to move correctly. That is what a great ankle therapy program is all about.
H.E.M. Ankle Rehab is a 3 step system that improves healthy circulation, eliminates swelling and pain fast, and then rebuilds for strong ankles with healthy range of motion.
You can do the entire therapy program at home without any equipment. Just follow along with the step by step videos instantly, on any device.
HEM Ankle Rehab is Great Ankle Therapy
H.E.M. has helped over 100,000 people who healed their ankles after a brand new injury and others who finally became pain free after decades of chronic pain. It will feel so much better when you walk and run and the best part is that you will be able to move pain free!
If you have an ankle injury, we hope you will get started right away, so you can heal that ankle fully & fast… learn more about HEM Ankle Rehab >