I had 2 surgeries on my right foot and ended up with 4 screws in it holding everything together. Long recover mean loss of a lot of muscle in the foot and ankle. Walking in the sand did really help, as well as some simple and more complex balancing exercises. Simple exercises were simply trying to stand on one leg as long as possible, and then as the muscle built up, doing some dips. More complex balancing was done on a bosu ball, and that in particular really helped strengthen the ankles.