How To Quickly Recover From An Ankle Sprain
You may be wondering why you have weak ankles. You may be wondering how to best heal your ankle sprain or you may be wondering what is the best way to prevent another ankle injury. The answer is a combination of rest and physical therapy. Rest allows the ankle to heal itself without further injury and physical therapy guides the ankle back to it’s full strength. Both are essential in the healing process.
Most focus on the rest part without the rehabilitation part. This leads to chronically weak ankles and as a consequence, chronic ankle sprains. A weak ankle cannot support the body’s movements well. Any little misstep can cause the ankle to sprain and people end up spraining their ankle over and over because their ankles are weak.
Your ankle will soon heal after a sprain but it will remain weak. People ignore this weakness because there is no current pain. They then sprain their ankle again and have to undergo another 6 weeks of rehabilitation. For this reason, it is essential to begin a physical therapy program.
Customized Physical Therapy Program
Our physical therapists at Cross Bay Physical Therapy design an individualized program to help heal your ankle and rebuild it’s strength. After this program, you can leave without fear that you are at a high risk of another ankle sprain.
Examples of Exercises:
- Balance on a Bosu Ball - A Bosu Ball is like one of those inflatable balls that you seem at the gym but it has a flat surface. You balance on the ball one foot at a time to strengthen the muscles surrounding your ankle and develop your balance. After some time and practice, your ankle can handle all the stresses of daily movement without succumbing to a twist or a roll.
- Calf Raises And Stretches - The muscles surrounding the ankle need to stay loose to help the healing process of damaged cell tissue. Also, when the ankle is weak, the calf muscle overcompensates for this weakness and takes on more of the burden on the body’s movements. Strengthening the calf muscles keeps it in shape to handle increased responsibility while the ankle heals.
Physical Therapy is one of the most effective strategies to aide in the healing of an ankle sprain. It is important that you take re-strengthening the ankle seriously or you could end up with another sprain after spending weeks resting. We are confident that we can help you heal your ankle sprain and regain your strength.
Call (718) 835-0084 and schedule an appointment.