From: conway@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Steve Conway)
Newsgroups: rec.running
Subject: Re: Ankle Sprains
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:11:25 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Linguistics, University of Edinburgh

>>On 4 Jan 93 15:09:31 GMT, joes@lpi.liant.com (Joe Stewart) said:

> Two questions:

>    a.  How to prevent them?

>    b.  What to do when you get them?

As I've been a fairly serious orienteer for the last 17 years (since I
was 10) and I've been running hill-races for several years, I've
twisted my ankles umpteen times, and so have my running friends.  The
taping techniques (below) are those used by Scandinavian orienteers.

Initial treatment - ICE - ice, compression and elevation.  If
necessary, stick your foot in a stream or pond.  If you are at home,
apply an ice-pack.  If you don't have an ice-pack, use a pack of
frozen vegetables (peas are good), but don't eat repeatedly refrozen
food.  Bandage the ankle.  Ibuprofen seems effective, but I have only
recently started using it, and I haven't done myself much damage
recently.

Over a longer term you want to develop strength, flexibility and
protective reflexes in your ankles.

For flexibility, with bare feet, circle your toes in clockwise and
anticlockwise directions.  After doing this for several turns you can
use your hands to *gently* increase the degree of flexion.

For strength, try standing on one leg.  Once you develop enough
balance to not wobble much, try it with your eyes shut and arms
folded.  The idea is that you should be wobbling about.  This also
helps to train your muscles to act correctly to support your ankles.
You can also do this on a "wobble board" - a board raised off the
ground, that you can stand on and wobble as you try to balance.
Purpose made wobble boards are usually circular, with a hemispherical
block of wood underneath, about 5-6 inches (12-15cm) tall, but they
are easy to improvise.

Running on rough surfaces will also increase the strength and
flexibility of your ankles, but most importantly they will train your
muscles to react correctly to twisting in order to protect your
ankles.  However, you don't want to twist your ankles doing it, so take
it slowly.  Off-road shoes should not have thick wedges in the soles,
or flared midsoles.  You want your foot to be close to the ground.
Your heels must be snuggly held in the shoe for stability.  Studded
soles will help.

If you really need to protect your ankle when running you can tape it
for support.  Get wide (2in, 5cm) strapping tape.  Shave the offending
ankle a fair way up the leg.  Strapping doesn't work well on hairy
legs, and it hurts like hell getting the stuff off.  You should tape
in a stirrup under the heel, with the ends of the tape going a hands-
spread up the calf from the ankle, on both sides.  This tape should be
fairly taut.  A loop of tape around the calf will help keep the tape
in place, but don't make this too tight.  You can also put a piece of
tape over the top of the foot, behind the heel and back over the foot,
crossing itself.  This gives support if your foot is forced backwards
as you move forwards.

  Leg                           ------
 |    |                         ||||||
 | ## |                         ##  $$   Big Foot !
 ######                         |##$$| 
 | ## |              and        | ## |
 | ## |                         $$ ## 
 | ## |                        $/---\#
 | ## -------_                 $|leg|#
 |_##___Foot__|                $\___/#        # and $ = tape
                                $$$## 
   
TAPE AS INFREQUENTLY AS POSSIBLE !  If you strap you ankles all the time
they won't get stronger and your muscles won't learn to react to the
signals from the nerves which monitor your ankle movements.  The only
exception to this is if you have destroyed the proprioceptive nerves
in your ankle due to repeated damage.  In this case light taping in a
stirrup will give a signal (by pulling on the skin) when your ankle is
flexed that you can learn to use instead.

I hope this helps some of you with ankle problems.

Steve.


--
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Centre for Speech Technology Research  /   _  \       \      \|     /   
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