I'm good at injuring myself heh, ankle advice..

:slight_smile:

Yeah I know, I did 300m today, tomorrows 400m :smiley:

I did some one leg balances today on injured ankle, wow I didn’t realize how much the ankle is used in balancing. It hurt a little bit but nothing too bad.

-Steel

One leg balance. Hold until 30 sec. No wobble.

Shoe on, eyes open
Shoe off, eyes open
Shoe on, eyes closed
Shoe off, eyes closed

Same progression on these surfaces in this order:

floor, pillow, air disc, mini-tramp,
half-sphere board

Hopping and running drills can be added concurrently if tolerated and performed with consistant form.

You can start at any point in the progressions. Move quickly to the next. Don’t spend time at one progression if its not challenging.

Key points to remember:
Don’t turn rehab into a circus act.
Add explosive, plyo movements as soon as tolerated.
(They bridge the gap between traditional rehab and playing.)

I will add more later.

T

Thanks!

After almost a week of both of your generous tips and suggestions, the ankles been feeling a lot better, at some points almost pain free! It still has some ways to go, but its really getting better. You guys are the best :slight_smile:

Happy to make athletes happy.

Glad to hear it!
Just keep it up and be patient!

You guys are the best. :slight_smile:

I jogged 800m today, no pain like usual, but I’m getting a little bored with the jogging

Do you think I should make the transition to sort of “intensive” tempo runs since the jogging has been painfree this whole time? Like I’d do 100m runs at 80% or something…

-Steel

I would assume so; however, I would suggest you go back to some of the comments made by Thomas and wait for his reply.

Perhaps as a test-like session, you could try some standing bike exercise, before introducing more intensive drills on track with full body weight, as suggested above in this page.
If this is fine, perhaps short accelerations and/or easy plyos first for strength (vs. endurance) to come back.
Good luck!

Thanks!

Good tips…let’s see what Tom has to say about the increased level…intensive stuff(80% runs).

ULS, I’m honored by the interest in my posts.

Steel, I would like you to start out running some short acclerations first. Begin with a 20 meter lead in at 60%, then pick it up for 20 meters to 85-90% and take as much distance you need to slow down. Increase the distance in 5 meter distances as quickly as you feel comfortable. You can increase in the first workout so you can tell where you are at comfort-wise.

The reason for this is, I don’t want to introduce any frustration in your rehab/comeback. If you start out at 100 meters and experience discomfort,

  1. It may push your healing/rehab back.
  2. It leads to un-needed frustration that could be avoided by starting off easy and working towards hard. Rather than trying something hard, get pissed you can’t do it, then having to start off easy anyway. This is the wrong way most people approach their rehab by the way.

When you can go 50 meters at 90%, back it back down and begin at zero with an explosive start for 10 meters. I can add a progression table later on tonight. I have some athletes coming in right now.

How are you at cutting and lateral movements?

Thomas

Sounds good! I dreamt I was doing these actually :smiley:

I don’t really do anything else besides straight work. I’m probably alright though.

If my achilles is a little bit looser in my right foot because of the injury, is this something I need to fix or worry about?

Not sure how you are doing with your rehab and actually about the term “loose”, but just a thought here; it might be the case that the whole area is not yet strong enough and/or somehow -and because of the former- you are loading your Achilles more than you should.

Perhaps nothing to worry about for now, but since it relates to your Achilles, I would be cautious…

Thomas?

Oh the ankles feelin pretty good now, still not sprint ready though I’d say.

But yeah when I say a little looser, I don’t mean it’s like a noodle or it moves a lot when you push it with fingers, I just mean it can move a bit more/ easier when I push it with my fingers than my left.

Thanks. :slight_smile:

Waiting for good ol’ Tommy’s reply. :smiley:

I suspect the left Achilles is “tighter” due to compensatory changes from the injured, now normal, right ankle.

A botched Achilles tendon repair or someone with neurological (stroke, drop foot) problems would have a difference between Achilles as far as the tension or rather lack of tension that can be palpated in the tendon.

I suspect you don’t fit into any of the latter conditions.

Tom

Thanks Tom.

Actually, the achilles seems to just about returned to normal thickness and tightness. Maybe just a little bit more…

The ankle is now in a stage where sometimes I can have next to no pain in one leg balance or rolling, and then sometimes it’ll actually hurt a good bit. It still hurts to push on some parts, but not as much as it used to hurt. The morning is one of the times when its not the best, but I think that depends on how long I sleep. One night I slept 6 hours, moved the ankle and it hurt, but I went back to sleep another 6 hours and it felt much better after waking up then? Go figure :smiley:

-Steel

Mornings will always be the most painful.
Low joint temp, low viscosity of synoval fluid, decreased ROM, etc…

Try some gentle ankle movements like a clockwise or counter clockwise rotations before you hit the floor.

Thomas

Gotcha, cool. :cool:

Did 4 sprints with a 20m lead in at 65% and 20m run zone at 80-85%, felt pretty good. I don’t know why, but I’ve been having some pain in the very lower calf, not quite the achilles I think, but since the achilles is probably longer than I can see, maybe its something with that.

I dunno, but toe raises with a real emphasis at the top hurt this area a lot, and sprinting very slightly. It feels like a muscle thing, but it could be tendon I guess.

Should I do bodyweight/lightweight toe raises for this?

Not sure, of course, what the problem is, but if you keep having “problems” around this area and eventually it relates to your Achilles, it might be a good idea strengthening it by eccentric exercises mainly.

I think there are a few such exercises under “X-man”, if I remember correctly…

Waiting for Thomas… :slight_smile:
Or any other, of course!

Thanks Niko. Maybe you meant “tc” or someone from this thread, or maybe you meant one of X-man’s post in another thread, not sure.

Do you have any recommendations on some of these eccentric excercises?