Training & Nutrition - Know any ankle exercises?

My right one has been broken twice and my left one once. They are really weak and hurt after awhile on the bike and while doing squats. I was wondering if yall know any exercises to strength them..thanks guys

Hammer, you ever try http://www.google.com? Just type in Ankle exercises. Plenty of hits.

Since you have seriously wrecked your ankles in the past I would assume you have a lot of scare tissue built up.

You can not realy strenghten the ankle its self but you can strenghten the supporting muscles. Calf raises and toe lifts. Also, if you can get/make ( I forget the techncal name) one of thoes balance boards that you can stand on that moves in all directions will also help out.

I would also suggest getting some deep tissue massage and some ultra-sound to help clear out the scar tissue.

If you have arthritis starting because of your injuries then you will just have to deal.

:beer:

What he said. :D

Calf raises will work well, but try to find a dorsiflexion machine at your local gym (like the HammerStrength tibia dorsiflexion machine) that could do this too.

You can also work on doing ankle eversion and inversion exercises. Rather than describe them to you, I included some links that show the exercise and how to perform them:

http://www.onlinefit.com/health/index.cfm/Exercise/397
ankle inversion

http://www.onlinefit.com/health/index.cfm/Exercise/396
ankle eversion

You can also do standing calf raises on an uneven surface- this should help you to work those ankle muscles for stability. For instance, hold a weight you can handle in each hand, and use a yoga mat loosely rolled up to stand on and do your standing calf raises on that.

Koffee

Hi,
in additon to the suggestons above, I hae a couple. I would make a point of eating clacium rich foods (dairy products are overrated as a source fo calcium)....or take a calcium pill once a day. A 250 mg pill would be great. The next suggeston is to walk, then hike. Your bod was designed to walk; that will help bring your ankles back. Once they toughen up a little, hiking will toughen them up even more.

Find a dumbbell or or other weight.

Stand on one foot on a stair on the ball of your foot.

Hold on to the stair rail.

Flex ankle up and down raising and lowering the weight of your body plus the dumbbell or whatever in your hand.

You may want to start without any weights, just your body weight.

Increases strength in calf.

Repeat

12

10

8

6

12

with 1 minute rest in-between.

Do other foot.

Thanks everyone for yalls suggestions. I have massive calves from years of football and weight lifting. I guess the ankles themselves are flexable enough. If yall have anymore suggestions keep'em coming

I'm not sure what you're looking for. All these are pretty much what you're going to find in the neighborhood of ankle exercises... pretty good suggestions, too.

Regardless of whether you have big calves or not, these are the exercises that will do you a lot of good. If you're worried about building your calf muscles, use light weights and do lots of reps. The idea is not to build ankle flexibility or calf muscle, it's to strengthen the ankles so you can have the strength to get out there and do longer rides without fatiguing.

Check out those websites I posted earlier and see if the exercises suggested would be of benefit to you.

Good luck!

Koffee

I would try balancing exercises to correct the weak tendency of weak ankles to weakly not have proper motion, then try some stuf f more difficult.

Jacob