A sprained ankle can be incredibly painful, and can also be a serious blow to your fitness. This then translates into other areas such as your general wellness and wellbeing, and your weight, as you can find the pounds creeping on and the low moods creeping up as you rest and wait for your ankle to recover. Fortunately, there are exercises that you can do to help strengthen your ankle and speed you on the way to recovery again.
As soon as you can bear weight comfortable on the foot again, and have nearly a full range of motion in the ankle, you can start to perform strengthening exercises. Isometric exercises are a good starting point, which you do by pushing your ankle against a fixed object. When you feel confident with these you can then move on to isotonic exercises, which involve you using your ankle in motion against a form of resistance.
For example, tilt your foot down and form a straight line from your ankle to your toes. Then push the flat bit against a fixed object, such as the edge of the couch, and hold this position for the count of ten seconds. Repeat this exercise again a further then times.
Next, do the opposite with your ankle – curl your toes up towards your leg as far as they will go, and then push the bottom of your foot against a solid object, such as a wall or the couch. Once again, hold this position for the count of ten seconds and then release, and follow up with another nine repetitions of the exercise.
You can also carry out exercises using a resistance band. You can do this by holding the band around your forefoot and then holding the ends of the band with your hand. Next, gently push down with your ankle as far as you can manage, and then return to the starting position. Repeat this ten times.