We’ve been put out of commission and just want to end the frustrating pain, so we can get back to our everyday lives. After all, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone – that is how the old saying goes, isn’t it?

There are two very different paths a sprained ankle healing process can take.

Option #1: Icing and Waiting (about 6-8+ weeks)

One of the most common ways to treat a sprained ankle is to simply ice and rest it – this helps cut down on inflammation and avoid any further injury, which begins the healing process.

It also can help ease pain and discomfort, which is why we do recommend initially icing following a sprain.

However, most people think that’s all you can do or should be doing – when in reality – you should be taking a proactive approach by using rehab and recovery techniques.

Option #2: Proactive Rehab Techniques (about 1-4 weeks)

We highly recommend taking a much more proactive approach when recovering from a sprained ankle – begin to move the ankle as soon as possible – don’t apply weight yet, simply sit and move it around – get a sense of which directions are most tender.

By working with the body to relieve tension, spasm and compensation, while improving blood flow to speed up the healing process, most of our clients see dramatic results within days instead of weeks, and continue to improve quickly from there.

Rehab includes strategic icing, self-help techniques to relieve pain and increase blood flow, stretching, as well as strengthening exercises.

Results Will Vary

Since your injury is as unique as you are, how long it’ll take to heal will greatly depend on how severe the injury was.

However, if you take the proactive rehab route, we guarantee that you’ll recover faster, easier and dramatically reduce the risk of ever spraining your ankle again.

You’ll have the exact strategies and techniques to work with, stretch and re-strengthen your ankle – so you can get rid of any built up tension, increase blood flow and recalibrate your balance to avoid weakness.

Getting Started Is Simple

We’ve designed our at-home rehab program to be as easy and step-by-step as possible – it addresses any kind of sprain, so it’ll work for your unique injury – regardless of the circumstances.

Of course, you should first get your ankle checked out by a doctor to ensure you haven’t broken any bones – from there, the rehab process can begin right away.

Article Added: 3/14/2012, Revised: n/a

Video Transcript:

So the first thing you want to do when you get a sprained ankle you’re going to get a lot of swelling, typically. Depending on the severity of what’s happened to the tissues internally with the ankle, is how bad the swelling’s going to be.

First and foremost, the body has to go through an acute process – the acute phase of injury, which begins the healing process. So in the first 72 hours roughly, you’re going to get a lot of swelling and you want to pay attention to just treating the swelling.

You don’t want to go too crazy right off the bat; you want to just pay attention to keeping the swelling at a minimum – and that’s when you’re going to want to ice.

So the standard protocol for pretty much the last 50 years is about 20 minutes on, 20 off. You’re probably going to roll your ankle to the outside – that’s the most common type of sprain when the ankle rolls inward and it stresses and injures a lot of tissues on the lateral side of your ankle.

You want to focus the ice for the first 24 hours on the actual spot that is the most effective, the outside, inside, wherever you feel the most pain, or you just literally see the most swelling.

You don’t want to completely ignore the entire ankle and only treat the area that hurts the most. The whole girdle of the ankle is going to be affected by a sprain. Both if you hurt it laterally, the medial, the top, the posterior side of the ankle is going to be gravely affected as well.

Even though you have pain on the outside, pay attention to icing the whole ankle – if you can get a bag of ice around the whole ankle, that’s what you want to do. 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off.

You never want to heat, use heat on a new injury. I know a lot of people around the industry tend to argue about whether you should heat or ice. The typical rule has always been never heat a new injury – you always want to ice it.

And the biggest thing to keep in mind is ice constricts the blood vessels and slows inflammation, heat dilates the blood vessels and increases inflammation – so [later on] use your own judgment.

In my practice, I tell people to try both – never tell them to try both in the beginning of an acute phase, always ice.

If you sprained your ankle six months ago and you still get swelling at the end of the day let’s say, then you can try heat and ice – alternate them. If one works best, do that one – that’s you listening to your body.

So, whether we like it or not, our body has to go through an acute phase of recovery, which usually includes swelling, bruising and pain – for the first few days, focusing on treating the swelling by icing will be our main focus.

Paul recommends getting a bag of ice, and icing for 20 minutes on, followed by 20 minutes off of rest – the rest time will allow your skin to return to its normal temperature so you don’t damage it.

Try focusing on the most injured portion of your ankle, but don’t forget to ice around the injury as well.

As a reminder, never use heat initially on a new injury – it may be beneficial later on, after the acute phase of recovery is over, but for now, make sure to stick with just icing.

Also, before we move on, I’d like to take a moment to add on to Paul’s recommendation – I’ve found that icing with a bucket is one of the easiest, fastest ways to ice – and you get the best coverage over your entire ankle, too.

You’ll need a bucket you can fit your foot inside of, water, and some ice – if you combine all three in the bucket, you’ll have an ultra-effective ice bath to soak your ankle in.

Since ice baths are generally colder than using a bag of ice, you’ll want to ice for 5 to 10 minutes, with about 20 minutes in-between another cycle.

While working in movement and self-help techniques, you should continue icing for the first few days of your recovery, until most of the swelling is gone.

From here, we still have two more phases of rehab left to cover, which will include the NRT self-help technique to speed up recovery by enhancing blood flow, non-weight bearing movements to prevent scar tissue and stiffness, and band work and exercises to improve balance and proprioception.

To learn more, click on the “Next Video” button directly below this video.

Paul and I are looking forward to getting you started with the rest of the program – see you in a moment – click that button down below now.

Video Transcript:

When we work into the self-help phase of what we’re going to be providing for you, you have to have a basic understanding of how muscles work, how the brain uses the muscles to protect you. The brain protects two primary ways – it protects through the muscle system, but it will spasm and then compensate.

A spasm in the muscle is when the brain literally locks it down to protect an area that’s injured – when you sprain your ankle, your entire ankle, front to back, side to front, everything goes into spasm and you can’t use it. That’s protection.

Secondarily is compensation. Compensation is when you now begin to limp and favor the area. So compensation is literally just favoring an area that hurts. The problem that nobody seems to understand in the basic world of physiology is when you compensate for anywhere from three to four weeks, say about 21 to 28 days of protecting an area, that new protective pattern becomes the normal firing pattern of your neuromuscular system.

So the example I always use for people, even though this has nothing to do with your ankle, has everything to do with your ankle. If I have a healthy shoulder and I reach up to scratch my head, I do that without a hitch. If I get an injury in my shoulder, phase one is spasm. My brain does all this, spasms the muscles that are injured, literally locks down my shoulder so I can’t use it.

I still have an itch on my head, so now compensation kicks in, sends signals to my lateral neck, my ribs, to bring my head to my hand. That movement to my hand is a compensatory pattern. This is normal. This is imbalance.

After only about three to four weeks, 21 to 28 days, this movement will become my normal head scratching movement for this side of my body. This is very basic physiology. None of this stuff we make up or invent – this is all stuff you can look up on your own.

But this is stuff that is so crucial to the long term effects of a sprained ankle. Sprained ankles can wreak havoc on your life the rest of your life if you don’t know how to treat them initially, in the middle, and in the long term process.

So understanding what happens with this process is crucial in order for you to make an impact on your recovery. Now the first thing that happens in the spasm phase is – muscles are almost identical to a sponge. So if you could picture a sponge on your kitchen sink in the morning, it’s hard and shriveled up.

You can’t really use it, right?

So the first thing you do is you fill it up with water. As you slowly fill it up with water, it lengths, it expands, and becomes pliable and flexible.

A muscle that’s in spasm is almost identical to that sponge that’s shriveled up and hard – it has no blood in it or very little blood – when a muscle spasms, it squeezes.

So it squeezes everything within the belly of that muscle, namely blood vessels. So when a muscle squeezes, it will squeeze out a lot of the blood from the belly of that muscle.

That’s simply called ischemia. Ischemia is a lack of blood in soft tissues. That leads to the most common pain and imbalance in the human body, ischemic inhibition. That literally means your brain can only use a muscle to the extent that it has blood within it.

So theoretically, if I have a muscle in spasm and the blood is getting squeezed out by the say 50 percent, your brain is only ever going to use that one muscle at 50 percent – it literally can’t use it beyond that.

So it’s going to call on all these other helper muscles to do the job for that muscle. That’s compensation – we’re back to here.

What we do and what we’re going to teach you to do on your own with simple little tools is how to take those little areas of spasm throughout your leg compartment, your lower leg, your foot, initially, in the middle, and at the end, to get optimum blood supply to these areas. The second the injury occurs, everything locks down – you’ve got a whole bunch of sponges in there.

As you start to recover, some get better, some stay bad, some get worse because of compensation. Your ankle is better six months later, but you still have pain. Why is that? Your ankle injury has healed – your ankle injury healed four months ago. But you still have pain because you have all this muscle tissue that’s getting starved of oxygen.

When the muscles are in spasm and you’re lacking blood, there’s a lack of oxygen. And it’s the main thing you need to think of when you have muscles that don’t have enough blood – they’re starved of oxygen. The muscles are workers, they have to breathe.

Yes, blood brings all the good nutrients in, it takes all the bad stuff out – but the main thing for the workers of our body is oxygen. The muscles have to be able to breathe.

So that’s the main thing to keep in mind as we show you these little tips that we’re going to go through here in a second. Any time we find an area that’s very tender, there’s not enough blood in the muscle.

Ischemic tissue, tissue without enough blood, is very tender to the touch. You’re going to find a whole lot of tissue in your leg as we go through these exercises that you’re going to be shocked that you even have. A lot of the stuff that we’re going to find, you might feel is like, a little too tender.

It’s not to worry – anything that you do, your brain is in control of. As long as you listen and don’t become an animal and push past the pain where it’s not tolerable, you’re going to be fine.

Getting into pain hurt, getting out pain is going to be tolerable, but it’s going to be a little discomforting. You’re always going to be able to handle it.

As long as you do what we say to do and you do this with repetition, you’re going to do this a lot; you’re going to be so much better and so much faster that you’re not even going to believe it.

But the long term aspects are never going to be anything that you’re going to have to deal with because you understand how to release and let go of all these imbalances that occur.

If you don’t understand it, you’re going to be stuck in a pattern that is going to bring you low back pain, hip pain, shoulder, headaches, 10, 20 years down the road from your sprained ankle – getting this done now is going to take you far.

Alright, so Paul started off by talking about how our brain uses our muscles to protect us through spasm and compensation – but while this process may benefit us in the short-term, it can cause life-long complications down the road – like weakness, pain, or re-injury.

We also found out that muscles are like sponges – they need blood flow to be pliable, flexible, and basically work properly. If they’re starved of oxygen, it causes imbalances, pain, and keeps us injured for much longer than necessary.

If we can work with our body to release and let go of these imbalances, we can speed up our recovery time and get out of pain much faster.

Now we’re getting to the good stuff – click that “Next Video” button down below to learn about moving through the acute phase of your recovery.

Video Transcript:

One of the first few things that you should do, well depending of course on how severe the injury is how you should carry it out from there.

If it’s really bad, you’re going to have to go to the hospital. But first and foremost, you really want to evaluate what your normal activity levels are.

If you cannot put weight on your ankle, if you simply can’t use it, you’re going to have to get to the doctor pretty quick. What you really want to do is eliminate all the bad stuff. So any time you do something brand new to an ankle in terms of a sprain, it’s going to hurt. Arguably you’re not going to be able to walk on it for the first day or two.

What you want to do is eliminate anything that’s potentially bad. You want to eliminate breaks, first and foremost. I’ve had a lot of people in my practice over the years who have had a sprained ankle, didn’t treat it, didn’t see a doc, 10 years later it’s still a problem, turns out they had a break that they never had set properly, and now everything’s screwed up.

So the main thing about seeing a doctor, getting an MRIs and x-rays, is to rule out anything bad. Once you’ve done that, then the process can begin to start.

The main thing we’re going to be addressing is how to really listen to what your body is telling you – most people don’t do that. Our niche, and the therapy we provide here at my facility, is that’s really all we’re doing.

We’re listening to what your subconscious brain is telling us through palpation or touch in your body. You can do the same thing yourself, if you just learn how to listen. We’re going to try to teach you that today.

The main thing to understand is if your body is telling you shouldn’t walk on something, you shouldn’t walk on it. If it’s telling you not to use your ankle, don’t use it, don’t try and be a hero and go past what your body is telling you to do.

The unique thing that nobody pays attention to in any recovery process is your brain. Your brain is completely in control of the process from the beginning to the middle to the end, and everything in between, it’s in control of everything – you’re just enjoying the ride.

We have a saying in our business, in my practice, that your body is the vehicle that carries you through life. How comfortable is your ride?

People get a kick out of that, but we really use that as our mantra every day with our clients, to educate them to understand that, if I can listen to my vehicle, I’m going to be able to take care of it for my life.

What we’re here to teach you is to find out and listen to the signs before anything becomes bad. And if you get really good at that, you can literally live a pain free life with just self-help tools that we’re going to show you today.

Now barring injury like a sprained ankle, injuries from car wrecks, falls, those things all can’t be avoided. However, if you know your body previous to these events, you’re going to be that much better equipped after the event to get through that problem so much faster than you ever thought possible.

The things that we want to caution you on are listening too much to what the doctors have to tell you. They have good information, but for the most part they’re just going to give you some basic information and guidelines.

And they’re not going to tell you anything about what’s going to happen beyond that injury. They’re going to treat the injury, but beyond that as I mentioned earlier, they’re going to kind of fall short.

So we’re here to fill in that gap. We’re here to get you better fast, with very little effort on your part.

Okay – so the biggest takeaway we’ve learned in this video is the fact that the severity of your injury will determine what your initial response should be – meaning, if it’s bad enough, you may need to get checked out at the hospital or your doctor’s office.

Thankfully though, most sprains aren’t that severe – the easiest way to tell is if you can’t put any weight on your ankle – this means you may have actually broken a bone, and should rule out any breaks before getting started with your recovery.

Lastly, Paul also talked about how listening to both your brain and body is really important when recovering from a sprained ankle – he’ll be getting into more detail later on in the series, so make sure to stick with us.

On that note, let’s continue on – click that “Next Video” button down below.

While we’ve covered a lot in these first few videos…

…there are two more phases of the program that are absolutely vital to a full recovery.

As you work through the acute phase…

…there are immediate techniques and strategies you can use to help ease stiffness, promote faster healing, increase blood flow…

…and greatly reduce the risk of reinjuring your ankle in the future.

We’ve provided these first few videos to show you exactly how the rest of the program is setup – and how incredibly powerful knowing what to do and applying that knowledge can be.

After all, when I’ve gone through sprains in the past, those were the most frustrating problems that bothered me…

…not knowing what to do and how long it would take to recover.

With our help, you can take back control and put yourself on track for the fastest recovery possible.

However, the clock is ticking on your recovery…

…ankle’s heal ineffectively on their own and can become imbalanced through spasm and compensation after an injury.

By following through with our proven at-home treatment and rehab program…

…you can ensure a smooth transition through each phase of your recovery.

The videos are setup just like the ones you’ve been watching…

…they give explanations and in-depth demonstrations, so you know exactly how and when to use the techniques and strategies we provide.

With only a few basic supplies, you’ll be able to speed up your recovery through the acute phase…

…and also work to re-strengthen your ankle with stretching, strengthening and balancing exercises.

Plus, you’ll also receive a PDF text and photo version of the program…

…which you can print out or scan through digitally for quick reminders and tips without sitting through the videos again.

And thanks to the awesome power of the Internet, there’s no waiting or scheduling an appointment – you’ll be able to get started immediately.

If you’re ready to get rid of the pain faster and get back to enjoying your life…

…go ahead and click the “Add to Cart” button right below this paragraph:

You’ll be taken over to our secure checkout page, where you’ll enter your billing and payment information…

…then, simply click the “Next” button to get started.

Paul has been active in the therapy industry…

…as a neuromuscular release therapist for more than seventeen years…

…so it’s safe to say he knows his stuff.

Since specializing in pain and functional performance therapy in 1995…

…Paul has served as Director of Neuromuscular Therapy at the Center for Human Performance in Mesa, AZ…

…as well as the lead Neuromuscular Therapist at the TMJ Center of Scottsdale.

Now, if you were to go in to see Paul at his office…

…the therapy would cost $125 for a one hour session…

…surely not the cheapest option, especially since the bill would be well over $500 or $600 after only a few sessions.

However, that’s the beauty of working with the program at-home, at your own pace.

By following along and learning to use the same techniques on yourself – with only a few basic tools – you’ll end up saving a big chunk of time and money.

Here – let me share with you…

…what a few of our past clients have had to say…

—

Carol Moore from Fortuna, California wrote in to say:

“Dear Bradley,

I want to thank you for all your very helpful instruction on caring for a sprained ankle.

I seriously sprained my ankle playing field hockey when I was fifteen – I am sixty-seven now and have had three or four bad sprains since I was young.

Until now I never was told or learned how to take care of it in a beneficial way that would improve and speed up recovery…

…all I knew was to keep my weight off of it for a while.

My ankle is now better than it has been in probably seventeen years!

Thank-you and God bless you!”

—

Keith Daugherty from Forest Grove, Oregon wrote:

“I am a sheet metal worker by trade, and I am on my feet all day long. One day, I fell 11 feet and landed on uneven ground, spraining my right ankle.

I did a Google search for sprained ankle and found this info that dared to challenge traditional therapies.

After applying the therapies, I was back to work in full capacity in 5 days.”

—

Susan R. from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania emailed us and said:

“I am a 52 year-old, very active woman – an avid cyclist and skydiver who typically works out 6 days a week…

…I experienced a high ankle sprain during a landing while skydiving.

I had never experienced any kind of injury before…

…so I was very unfamiliar with how to do rehab.

After I saw my doctor for x-rays, he told me to ice my ankle, handed me a walking cast, and told me to wear it for three weeks – and not to run.

That was it – no other advice or suggestions.

As one who is highly motivated to work to improve an injury rather than passively let it heal, I started searching on the web for more detailed guidance.

Once I found your website, I carefully and faithfully followed every phase of the program and it was terrific.

As I continued with the technique, exercises and stretching, my ankle felt better every day – I was able to walk without the cast in just a few days and could walk normally again within about 10.

The techniques and exercises were simple yet extremely effective…

…I would definitely recommend this program to anyone who has suffered a sprained ankle and wants to take an active part in their own rehab – thanks again!”

—

Believe me…

…if these clients can get these kinds of results, so can you.

Look – I know this is the Internet, and most of what’s out there is junk…

It’s sad, but true…

So Paul and I are happy to offer you an iron-clad, no-BS guarantee:

If you don’t see measurable, fast results within the first week of using our at-home rehab program…

All you have to do is send me an email and let me know…

…I’ll give you an instant refund, no questions asked – truthfully and honestly.

So there – all the risk is on us.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by testing out our at-home rehab program.

Worst-case scenario?

You check it out, it’s not for you and you get a refund – no big deal.

But best-case scenario?

You’ll heal faster, more effectively, and greatly reduce the risk of ever spraining your ankle again.

Within only a few days…

…you could be well on your way to a full, fast recovery.

And it all starts with clicking the “Add to Cart” button right below this paragraph.

From there, you’ll be taken over to our secure checkout page, where you’ll enter your billing and payment information.

Then, simply click the “Next” button to get started.

So, look – you can either…

…ignore this video, forget that you saw this, and go back to “waiting-it-out” on the couch…

Or you can take a shot that maybe, just maybe…

This program will be the key that unlocks an ultra-fast, effective recovery for you.

Remember, it’s fully guaranteed – so there’s no risk.

If you don’t get started with your recovery today…

…how will tomorrow be any different?

You’ll still have the same, annoying swelling and pain – without an actionable, proven system to help greatly reduce your recovery time.

So go ahead – click the “Add to Cart” button now.

I’m Bradley Barks, and Paul and I will see you on the other side.

We’re looking forward to hearing about your quick, simple recovery!

(Bradley Barks, Fitness Trainer)

PS: if you haven’t gotten started with the program yet, why not?

If you have any questions, send me a quick email by clicking here.

I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have…

Video Transcript:

Hi – I’d like to congratulate you on getting started with your sprained ankle recovery.

You’re about to learn the #1 tip to relieve your sprained ankle as fast as possible.

Real quickly, my name’s Bradley Barks and I’m a fitness trainer from Gilbert, Arizona.

Now, let’s get you started – here’s my good friend Paul to fill you in…

My name’s Paul Ruth, I’m [the] owner of Muscle and Joint Pain Specialists here in Scottsdale, Arizona. What we’re going to do for you in this little short video series is give you a really quick fast way to get through your sprained ankle with as little as possible coming from your efforts and maximum results at the end of the day.

What you have to keep in mind as we go through this process is everything in the healing process is about blood flow to the muscle or to the injury, the area that you have the injury in, namely the sprained ankle.

It’s all about muscle movement.

Everything in the body happens through the muscle system, yet there is no doctor or specialty of muscle in the medical field. A sprained ankle is a muscle injury; it’s a soft tissue injury.

Soft tissues are muscles, ligaments, tendons – any injury to the ankle you’re going to affect one, two or perhaps all three of those – but what happens right after the injury is your muscles in your lower leg compartment start to seize up and they go into spasm.

The second an injury occurs anywhere in the muscle, two primary things happen. The muscle spasms, and then the brain compensates for the injured tissue.

So what that means is when you get a sprained ankle, you still have to walk through the recovery process. The compensation – the spasm is when the muscles seize up around your ankle and you can’t use it – it becomes inflamed.

The compensation is when you have to continue walking, but now you’re going to compensate for that, you’re going to limp. All the weight is going to transfer to your opposite side.

So what we’re going to talk about today is we’re going to go through the first phase of recovery, the acute phase and how to get past that as quickly as possible, kind of the middle phase when you start to get a little better and start to work, and ultimately the end phase to keep you out of pain and keep your ankle stronger so that none of this stuff happens again.

Alright – so in this first video, the #1 tip we’ve learned is that everything in the healing process is about blood flow – and in order to speed up recovery, we need to increase blood flow to the injured area.

We also learned that all movement in the body happens thanks to the muscle system – when you’re injured with a sprain, all forms of soft tissue can be affected; including muscles, ligaments and tendons.

Following a sprain, the muscles surrounding your injury tend to spasm and contract, causing pain, weakness, and restricted blood flow to your sprained ankle.

With this in mind, let’s keep moving – click the “Next Video” button down below to move on.

Since a sprained foot is such a common injury, many different names have developed over time, including ankle sprain, folded ankle, rolled ankle – the list continues on.

But who cares, right? You’re here to learn how to treat your sprained foot and recover fast at home.

Breaking Down the Different Types of Sprains

So let’s get right into it – starting with the basics, there are three common ankle sprains that occur – an inversion, eversion and syndesmotic injury (affectionately known as a high ankle sprain).

An inversion sprain is by far the most common – accounting for over 75% of sprained – and refers to when your foot faces inward, which damages and stretches the outside ligaments of your ankle.

An eversion sprain is the exact opposite and is much less common – it’s when your foot faces outward during the injury, pulling and stretching the ligaments on the inside of your foot.

A syndesmotic sprain (aka, the high ankle sprain) refers to an injury that affects the large ligament above the ankle, called the syndesmotic ligament – this ligament acts as a connector for the tibia and fibula, the two bones that make up your lower leg.

With all three sprains, swelling, bruising, pain and joint weakness are all common symptoms – these symptoms are usually centralized around the most injured portion of your ankle, be it the inside, outside, or higher up your leg near your lower calf.

Initial Treatment Protocol

The most popular form of initial treatment is an acronym called RICE – which stands for rest, ice, compression and elevation. Rest is fairly self-explanatory – depending on the severity of your injury, you’ll want to stay off of your sprained foot for at least the first few days, and up to a week after your injury.

Ice has been proven to help control and reduce ankle swelling, and should be used until the majority of swelling has left your ankle. While using an ice pack or even a bag of frozen veggies is quite common, I’d suggest using a bucket large enough to put your foot inside of.

By filling the bucket with water and ice, you can effectively make an ice bath that will give you the best coverage over your injury – soaking your foot for 60 seconds at a time is ideal.

As a fair warning, you should feel a bit of discomfort as your dip your ankle into the water, mainly due to the rapid temperature change your skin is experiencing – if you do your best to fight through the first 15-20 seconds, you’ll be able to last the rest of the time more comfortably as your foot adapts.

After the 60 seconds are up, take your foot out of the water and carefully make your way over to a place to sit down where you can prop your ankle up above your heart – elevating your sprained foot will help the excess fluid drain toward your heart where it can be pumped and processed from your blood.

Shoot for 4-5 sets of 60 seconds of icing – once you’re finished, use an elastic wrap to compress your ankle. Starting near your toes, wrap around your foot once, and then move up your foot, wrapping over half of the previous wrap.

You should wrap tight enough for this to be effective, but loose enough so you don’t cut off circulation – be careful and make sure to listen to your body. If you’re experiencing numbness or discolorations, make sure to loosen the wrap immediately.

Once wrapped, prop your ankle back up above your heart and continue to rest – reading a book, conversing with a good friend, or listening to music can help the time pass by faster.

You should continue to ice until you’ve removed most of the remaining swelling – allow an hour in-between icing, and make sure to stay diligent – removing the remaining excess fluid is your sole focus at this point.

RICE and Beyond

While many conventional suggestions end here, most individuals aren’t familiar with how important actual rehabilitation is after you’ve reduced your remaining swelling.

Self-massage, stretching, balance training and re-strengthening are all important pieces to the overall recovery puzzle, and should be included within your recovery process.

These techniques go beyond the scope of this article, but I’d be happy to walk you through our step-by-step program that will give you the techniques, exercises and schedule to follow so you can get back to enjoying your life faster.

To learn more about our at-home sprained foot rehab program, click here.

Every day wear-and-tear can weaken your ankles, especially if you’ve suffered an ankle sprain recently, and didn’t follow through with rehabilitation exercises.

Thankfully, ankle strengthening exercises can be utilized to take advantage of the surrounding ligaments and supporting muscle, to help give additional support and strength to the ankle.

Whether you’ve suffered a recently sprained ankle, or experienced one in the past, it’s never too late to do some targeted strengthening for the area.

However, do act quickly if it was a recent sprain – you can help cut down on scar tissue formation and long-term discomfort by getting started with rehab right away.

Sprained Ankle Swelling Reduction, Then Exercises

There are many movements and exercises that specifically work to strengthen the ankle, however, we won’t be able to use them until we’ve gotten the swelling down and have our ankle back to normal-size.

This is one of the most challenging portions of overall recovery – actually taking the time to use swelling reduction techniques, including contrast therapy as well as self-massage, before moving onto the strengthening exercises.

Contrast therapy, alternately between hot and cold water, should be done for a total of 10 minutes, five being spent on each temperature, allowing time in-between for the water to adjust.

This strategy is a great first step, and will improve circulation to the injured area – it’ll also help calm the area, eventually allowing the remaining swelling to be removed while your body continues to stabilize and heal your injured ligaments.

Following contrast therapy, utilizing a simple self-massage technique is next – using castor oil, start off by covering your entire foot and ankle – this gives you the ability to move smoothly over the injured area – the castor oil will also seep into your pores, providing additional healing benefits.

Using your thumbs, and starting near your toes, begin to apply pressure and move up your foot and ankle – apply firm pressure, but be careful of pressing too hard – try your best to use pain as your guide.

Focus on pushing the swelling up from your foot and ankle in the direction of your heart – your body will naturally process out the toxins and fluid buildup, dramatically helping to bring your swelling down.

It may take a few days for you to get your swelling down, so make sure to stay on track and be consistent – following an at-home rehab program can help keep you on schedule.

Three Best Ankle Exercises

While there are a lot different ankle strengthening exercises and movements, I like to specifically focus in on a few, rather than throwing everything and the kitchen sink in – it seems to make it easier to be consistent and also allows you to stay focused on just a few particular moves.

Ankle Circles

To start off, get in a comfortable position – either standing or sitting -rotate your ankle through its current range of motion, beginning with a clockwise rotation – these are called ankle circles.

After you’ve completed 10-15 rotations, switch directions and move your ankle through its current range-of-motion counterclockwise for another 10-15 rotations.

Calf Raises

Next, hop up safely and find something sturdy to hold onto – the kitchen counter or a chair will work – get into an athletic stance and bend your knees slightly – rise up onto your toes, pushing through your calf muscles, pause for a moment at the top, and then lower yourself back down – this counts as one rep.

This movement is called a calf raise, and we’ll be doing 10-15 reps with as close to perfect form as possible – try holding the last couple reps for a few seconds at the top of the rep.

Dynamic Stretching

Dynamic stretching is a great way to calm your ankle and improve your range-of-motion – swelling generally causes both weakness and stiffness, which disrupts our mobility. By working in a front and side stretch, you can begin to help loosen up the surrounding ligaments and muscles.

By dynamic, I’m referring to moving through the stretch – you may also be familiar with static stretching, which is where you stretch fully and hold the position – we’ll be doing the opposite of a static stretch by moving through our current range-of-motion, for a count of five seconds – this will count as one rep.

While holding onto the chair in front of you, bring your injured leg back and tuck your toes underneath your foot – this first stretch is called a forward stretch, and will primarily stretch the front of your ankle.

As you count to five in your head, lean forward and gently apply more pressure to your foot – this will stretch the front of your ankle as much as currently possible – again, use pain as your general guide when stretching. Shoot for completing six, five second reps, for a total of 30 seconds of stretching.

Once you’ve completed the front stretch, untuck your toes and bring your leg in – set your foot on the ground and roll your injured ankle outward – we’ll refer to this as a side stretch, and it will target stretching the outside of your ankle.

While counting to five in your head, lean slightly outward while pushing through your current flexibility – once again, aim for six sets of five second reps for a total of 30 seconds of stretching.

Getting Started With an Ankle Strengthening Program

Even though ankle rehab exercises are a very important piece to a successful recovery, they’re not the only technique you should be using to recover from an ankle sprain.

If your ankle is still swollen and painful, you won’t be able to take advantage of the exercises for your sprained ankle anyways – if you’re interested in a speedy and comprehensive recovery, we have an in-depth, at-home rehabilitation program that you can get started with today, right now.

It’s been proven to super-charge the recovery phase by working with the natural healing processes of your body. Besides, if you’re working towards receiving your degree through a teacher certification program on-campus, you probably don’t have a lot of down-time to begin with. Attendance and participationare usually a big part of your grade.

Yy breaking your rehab into three easy to follow stages, it makes the program much easier to follow and allows you to get out of pain and back to what you love doing that much faster.

Start off by visiting our free consultation page, which will give you more details and answer any questions that you may still have – I look forward to getting you started with your rehabilitation today – all the best and take care of yourself.

Many times, these injuries occur when coming down awkwardly on the court, trying to turn too quickly, or landing on another player’s shoe after a shot or rebound.

Whether you were playing a pickup game at the gym, or in an organized team league, once you’ve suffered a rolled ankle, you’ll begin to realize just how much you use your ankles on an everyday basis.

It can be a total bummer to not be able to practice or play it games, but the frustrations also extend out farther, into times when all you’re trying to do is walk across the kitchen, or get from place-to-place.

Limping around, dealing with swelling, and experiencing pain is never fun, and can end up affecting your happiness pretty quickly. So – what can you do to fix up your ankle, and get back to basketball faster?

How to Treat a Sprained Ankle from Basketball

Well – by putting the most effective techniques and strategies into a proper initial treatment, followed by a proactive course of corrective exercises, stretches and movements, you can dramatically speed up your recovery time and get back onto the court that much sooner.

If you follow conventional advice, put a little ice on it, and basically rest your ankle, you will heal up – but it’ll be a slow, frustrating process that can take months. By being more proactive and following a set of proven principles, you can stay much more organized, and usually see a huge difference within the same week of starting rehab.

Proper Initial Treatment

If you’re dealing with a recent sprain, rest, ice, compression and elevation will all be beneficial for the first and second day of your rehab. Icing with a bucket full of water and ice is the easiest way to get full coverage over your entire injury.

If the temperature of the ice-water is too cold to withstand, try adding lukewarm water to raise the temperature slightly. The best protocol we’ve found is generally five sets of one minute in the bucket followed by thirty minutes of rest in-between another round of icing.

In-between icing sessions, compressing your ankle with an elastic athletic wrap can help keep your swelling down. To apply a spiral wrap, start with a firm circular anchor near your toes. Continue with firm wraps, and gradually make them lighter as you move up your ankle, making sure to wrap over about half of the previous wrap.

While wrapped, elevating your ankle above heart-level will help your body process and alleviate some of the swelling that’s still present. Propping a few pillows up underneath your foot should do the trick.

Rehab and Recovery Program

Once you’ve utilized an effective, initial treatment for the first day or two, icing starts to become detrimental to your recovery. Whereas, it is a good technique for the short term, once you’ve controlled your initial swelling, it’s much more beneficial to focus on removing the remaining swelling.

Now – at this point – your head may be spinning a bit from all of the recommendations. I get that – combine that with the frustration and pain that you’re probably experiencing and it can be downright overwhelming. Don’t worry – I have you covered.

Instead of trying to rough it on your own, we’ve developed a comprehensive ankle rehabilitation program called ACT. ACT stands for active, corrective, therapy, and utilizes the most effective initial treatment I’ve already discussed, followed by an organized plan of stretching, balancing, and re-strengthening.

To end the confusion, and get back onto the basketball court sooner, go ahead and get started with your free online consultation right now – there, I’ll discuss more about your injury, let you in on a few more insider tips, and also explain everything within the ACT at-home rehab program.

Let’s face it – when it comes to mastering any type of skill, whether it be shooting a perfect jump shot, or recovering from an ankle sprain, the player’s with the best knowledge, that learn from proven techniques and strategies always come out on top. Hop over to the free consultation to learn more now!

The type of pain you’re experiencing is classified medically as deep somatic pain. This kind of pain is initiated by a stimulation of the nociceptors in the damaged ligaments within your ankle, which typically causes a dull, throbbing ache that decreases over time.

Ankle sprain pain can also be leftover from an older injury, one that may not have healed or been rehabilitated with the proper recovery method. Whether you have an older injury, or a freshly sprained ankle, following the right techniques and strategies is vitally important.

Initial Treatment: Swelling Reduction

Following the correct schedule is vital when recovering from an ankle sprain. While you may be most frustrated by your pain, it’s extremely important to get your initial swelling controlled and alleviated as soon as possible.

Once the circulation to your ankle improves, fresh blood and nutrients can be carried into the site of your injury, helping to heal and repair the damaged ligaments faster. In turn, this will help dramatically alleviate the pain you’ve been experiencing, as well as the initial swelling.

Proper initial treatment should include resting your ankle as much as possible, as you use a bucket filled with ice and water to soak your injury. In-between icing, you can also use an elastic athletic wrap to compress your ankle. Additionally, keeping it elevated above your heart will also help alleviate pain, and control your initial swelling.

Complete Sprained Ankle Rehabilitation

Now – simply arming yourself with information and not taking action is certainly not the way to recover from your sprained ankle pain – but doesn’t this all sound a little overwhelming? Plus, without the correct plan, technique explanation, and exercise schedule, it can be pretty confusing to try to plan out your recovery on your own.

This is the main reason behind why we came out with our own, at-home, ankle rehabilitation program, which lays out your entire recovery for you. I’ll personally be the one walking you through, step-by-step, and giving you full instructions, explanations, and demonstrations along the way.

By taking a much more proactive approach to your overall recovery, you can dramatically speed up your healing, get rid of your pain faster, and – most importantly – get back to enjoying your life sooner. Missing out on important events or activities because of a lame sprained ankle sure isn’t fun – right?

To learn more about me, your ankle and the ACT rehab program, click here to get started with your free online consultation. When it comes to sprained ankle pain, the most important factor in the length of your recovery time is the rehabilitation program you follow.

Without proper rehab, your ankle could take weeks or even months to heal, and will also be at a much higher risk of future re-injury. You owe it to yourself to recover quickly and easily – get started with your free consultation immediately.