Have you ever rolled, hyper flexed, or hyper extended your ankle?
If so you’re not alone; acute ankle injuries are the most common acute injury in the parkour and natural movement communities and are seen even more broadly across many field sports.
Between the ages of 12-18 I myself suffered 7 severe ankle sprains on each ankle. Then in my late 20’s I tore my left achilles tendon and a year later suffered a bad high ankle sprain which is a tear of the connective tissue between the tibia and fibula.
As the saying goes, “A wolf is kept fed by it’s feet”, and if I was going to continue practicing this art that I love for the rest of my life, I needed to figure out a system to properly care for and strengthen my ankles.
Today, at 37 years old, my ankles work better than I can ever remember. In this article I will share the key exercises I have used to help myself and many of my students develop strong, mobile, elastic and injury resistant ankles.
I will break down the functions of the ankle and present you with a series of progressions to develop your pain free range of motion, strength and motor control, and dynamic loading capacities. You will also learn about the delicate balance between mobility and tension in the ankle joint and how the two parameters interact to increase performance and decrease the possibility of injury.
So try it out and let me know how it works for you, leave a comment and keep an eye out for the next program in our joint integrity series, coming soon!
Also, if you haven’t seen it yet, don’t forget to check out our previous video: “Overcoming Knee Pain for Parkour & Natural Movement”
