You’ve done your ABCs, towel crunches, calfraises and a gauntlet of single-leg exercises, but you keep spraining your ankle. Back to the training room for an ice bag, compression wrap and a trip to the orthopedic for more sad news: 2-4 weeks of physical therapy and maybe you’ll be back for the playoffs.
It’s all too familiar. Put the TheraBand away, we’re going to prevent these chronic ankle injuries from happening once and for all.
I’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t been affected by an ankle sprain at some point in his or her athletic career. Sprains vary in severity, typically graded based on a system that takes pain, structures involved and joint laxity into consideration. The mildest of sprains is a Grade 1 while the most severe is a Grade 3. Nearly 75 percent of the athletic population will suffer multiple ankle sprains in their career; of those, the majority suffer from a condition called Chronic Ankle Instability (CAI).
