Sprained Ankle Recovery Time

When you first sprain your ankle, it’ll most likely swell and become quite painful, depending on the severity of the injury.

The swelling is your body’s natural reaction to your ligaments being stretched farther than they’re accustomed to. (FYI, a ligament is the elastic structure in your foot that holds your ankle joint and bones in place.)

Ankle sprains can literally happen anywhere, at anytime throughout your day. Walking downtown, catching your ankle awkwardly on a curb, stepping up or down a flight of stairs at work, playing any type of sport, or even when you wake up in the middle of the night and groggily stumble to get some water from the fridge.

All it takes is stepping down when you’re off balance, or planting your foot unevenly to momentarily stretch the ligaments and surrounding tissue in your ankle, causing the injury.

Average Sprained Ankle Recovery Time

When using conventional sprained ankle treatments, most individuals end up healing their ankle within a few months at the most, which is the general sprained ankle recovery time. Again, this all depends on the severity of the ankle sprain though. Some may even begin to feel better within the first  two to three weeks, it’ll just vary.

Even though the R.I.C.E. rehabilitation technique has been suggested for years now by doctors and trainers alike, we don’t recommend it for rehabbing your ankle. It’s simply way too outdated, and virtually useless past the first day of ankle sprain.

This is because the R.I.C.E. formula prescribes rest, ice, compression and elevation, all forms of treatment for the symptoms of the sprained ankle, not the actual cause of the problem. (When the cause is actually the ligaments and surrounding structure being injured.)

During the initial injury period, icing your ankle is definitely important, but after the first day or two, as your ankle begins to shrink back to its normal size, R.I.C.E. simply tells you to rest and wait for it to heal naturally.

But what about the scar tissue that’s building up around your ankle joint, making it weak and vulnerable for future injury? Or the ligaments that are now extremely weak, which also leads to going through this entire process again, pain included. As you can see, R.I.C.E. leaves far too much up to chance.

What’s the Answer for the Ultimate Ankle Rehabilitation?

We strongly recommend the H.E.M. ankle rehabilitation system for all individuals who have sprained an ankle. The H.E.M. program is a revolutionary rehab and prehab information guide that was developed and designed by certified personal trainer, Scott Malin.

H.E.M. stands for the hydrotherapy, exercise, and massage, three vitally important rehabilitation aspects when rehabbing a sprained ankle. Mr. Malin also takes time to make general recommendations, and even goes through an entire prehabilitation routine, step-by-step, to ensure your ankles are even stronger than before your sprain.

If you’d like to learn more about the H.E.M. rehab program, feel free to click here to be taken to our analysis of the full routine. We’ll be sure to walk you through everything the rehab system includes. You can also hear from past users, as well as studies that have been done surrounding recovery times. There’s no time to waste, head on over there now.