Thread: Weak Ankles

Originally Posted by anklebreaker

I keep hurting my ankles playing basketball. Up high on the right and down low (more in the foot) on my left. I play 4 or 5 times a week and almost once a month I land on someones foot and have to take a few days-week off. What exercises can I do to make my ankles less susceptible and how heavy should I do them.

Happened to me a few weeks ago. Doesn't hurt when I walk but I can tell the ankle is off. Might have to have it checked out.

Do you have basketball sneakers? They will give your ankles more support.

http://www.dance.net/read.html?postid=2211620&page=1
My friend who is a dancer (modern dance) does these. Also toe raises and calf raises as well as doing cirlcles with your feet clockwise and counter clockwise a few hundred times each direction every day is really good to do for coordination and ankle mobility. Dancers have to have very strong feet and ankles. Band work is also good. Flexability, balance and strength are all important.

When I train people who want to put their strength into sports, the first thing I always tell them, is that we're training movements, not muscle groups or (a term I hate) "general strength".

Playing sports, especially basketball, you're exerting your body while doing a range of movements most people never do. So training is very different. Train your stamina and strength doing things like jumping side to side, running in tight circles both cw and ccw, jumping jacks, cardio with the bikes, the list goes on. What you're strengthening is that myriad of tendons and small muscles around the ankle, foot, and lower legs.

It sounds like reoccuring accidents. Are you really only hurting it when you land on other people's feet? That's a contact injury, and those are often unavoidable. Either way, some unilateral leg exercises could help promote ankle strength and reactivity to adverse situations. You might also consider some plyometric training to teach you how to land and control the applied force better.

I have an ankle problem......they are healthy but very thick!!! Is there anything i can do apart from make my calves look bigger?

To add to what Cow said, you can also work on a balance disc or half foam roll to get the stabilizing muscles of the ankle stronger. The progression would be to do what Cow said first, then work towards standing on an unstable surface.

Probably the most important of them all is the plyos, but those would be after the unilateral stuff.

Thick ankles...That is a good thing, less likely to break.

A common mistake when choosing Basketball shoes is that the height of the shoe will prevent an ankle sprain. It is more the width of the cross section as measured across the ball of the foot that helps prevent ankle injuries.