Any ideas? Walking barefoot dorsiflexion for distance, ankle rotations, etc?
ems, pogo jumps
stand on one leg, shut eyes
Use bands for ankle traction and resistance work
As an extension to CoolCol’s idea i’ve done standing on one leg with your arms out to the sides in the crusifix postition or holding a med ball at arms length out in front of you and rotating side to side at the hips. You can do it flat on your foot and on your toes (plantar flexed), then shut your eyes to make it harder.
Barefoot work is also good, you can try skipping and strides on grass or on sand.
For more high strength which is also important you need to do things like standing calf raises and bounding jumping off of just the ankles. Side to side jumps on your toes could work well and you can increase the load over time by increasing the height and/or width of the jumps. Barefoot or in shoes i guess.
Barefoot running.
You could do a lot of that work with bands
Here is our ankle injury prevention program that reduced our significant ankle injuries to two in football and zero in boy’s basketball. Prevention is more about proprioception rather than strength.
General warm-up 5-10 min. (Elevate joint temp)
All for 20 yds.
Ankle pops
Heel walks
Walk on outside of foot
Walk on inside of foot
Standing rotating heel raise
Skip for height
Diagonal skip for height
Carioca (sp)
Lateral slide
Rocks course in GPP. For fun but still getting neuro work.
Takes about 3 min to complete.
In regards to Therabands or elastic therapy bands. I’ve never found bands to be of benefit to anyone except someone who has been immobilized for a long period of time. And even then only used for a short period of time. If the athlete can get on his/her feet, you’re wasting your time with bands. Even an athlete with a grade 2 sprain will have good strength equal to uninjured ankle once pain has decreased.
Good ankle injury prevention programs try to “clean-up” the brain to ankle connection. Teaching the ankle to stabilize when it’s placed in an akward or unstable position.
try some of ian kings unilateral leg stuff;
-king deadlifts
-1 legged RDL
-1 legged goodmornings
Hi Guys,
What do you think of these ankle mobility exercises for injury prevention purposes?
You’re kidding, right?
Another preventive measures for ankle injuries:
Stretch the gastroc and soleus. Increasing the ankle ROM in dorsiflexion will keep the ankle from “getting stuck” in plantar flexion.