Topic: PK ankles

[Deft]

I'm sure most seasoned Traceurs have had a sprained ankle or 2. I like most others are no different. I have sprained my left ankle several times over the years but I have been enjoying several months of injury free playing ** knocks on wood**

I still feel pain on a regular basis and I feel that my left ankle is weaker than my right. I am still able to do all my functions (6-8ft drops no problem and all that good stuff)  Is this just something that I will have to deal with?
I don't feel that I am limited in what I can do but I feel that I am hindered in my progression, that my ankle won't let me go further.

insight as to my training/rehab:

wobble disk exercises
do circles and spell out alphabet with foot at night
regualr pk training (i don't feel that I overtrain)
gymnastic once a week

Can my ankle ever be as good as it once was?
or do I just need to get over it?

[mkerunner]

Honestly, no it wont be as good as it was. Once you have sprained your ankle the first time it puts you at greater risk for a reoccurance of that injury. As to wether or not that will happen depends on how much strenghting and work you put into it. The exercises you are currently doing are great for ankles and ankle strength. Keep doing what your doing and continue to do them because that one time that you don't for awhile it will come back to get you. Only other suggestion that I might give is if you have a stretching band to anchor it on something and stick your foot inside of it. Then sit down and move your foot in and out slowly. Hard to explain so i'm gonna see if I can get a pic of it. Hope that helps you, if not well I tried. 

[Gearsighted]

mkerunner is abolutely right. You've more than likely permanently weakened your ankle ligaments, and you'll have to be careful, and your exercises are spot-on, so just be careful and keep it up.

Good luck.

[Deft]

thanks guys.
I was afraid that was the case.

[Thomas Edwards]

although they're right, i mos def jacked up my left ankle a year ago and i'm still hearing about it....run barefoot.  it gets all of your stabalizer muscles all up ons in unbelievable ways.  I just started, and i can tell by my muscle soreness that my whole lower foot/leg system is being strengthened.  make sure to run on the balls of your feet, and start out small.

[Bubblemaker]

run barefoot and watch Dogens titanium ankles video: http://www.justincataldo.com/downloads/titaniumankles.zip

[psycosis12]

lmao, that was so blunt it made me laugh!

[Ken PKChiro]

, aight dude, im gonna say something different.  you CAN get your ankle back to where it was.  muscles are primary stabilizers, ligaments secondary.  the fact that you are repetitively spraining yourself in the same manner just tells me that the muscles around that joint are not doing their job.  your ligaments physically actually wont ever come back to the same strength, but there are variations in normal ligament tension in every person anyway, so why should that matter?  stabilize the joint muscularly throughh exercises, massage, etc around that joint.  you would be surprised.  basically get as much stimulation to the are (tender spots and what can be described as BBs under a slab of bacon)  type of tender spots as you can .  they are primarly located at the musculotendenous junctions.