Valentin Bosioc
While exercise is a great way to get both your body and your mind healthier, if you’re not careful, you can easily become injured as you attempt to workout. Luckily, with the right preparation and forethought, you can reduce your risks of getting hurt while working out, especially when it comes to sensitive areas like your ankles.
To help you see how this can be done, here are three tips for protecting your ankles from common injuries when exercising.
Wear The Right Shoes
The shoes that you wear when you exercise, and even the shoes that you choose to wear while going through your daily life, can have a big impact on how well protected your ankles are.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, the best way to ensure that you’re wearing the right shoes while you’re exercising is to visit a running store or other establishment where they can determine what your exact feet need. Here, you’ll be able to find out how much arch support you should be looking for, how high up your ankles your shoes should come, what kind of sole is best for your feet, and more. These assessments don’t take long and can be very insightful for buying exercise shoes now and in the future, so it’s worth your while to get this information to ensure that your feet and ankles will be safe and happy while working out.
Warm Up Correctly
Once you’re wearing the right attire, the next more important thing to do to ensure that you’re protecting your ankles, and other parts of your body, while exercising is to warm up properly.
While it’s a good idea to do some dynamic stretching all over your body when warming up for exercise, Nicole Radziszewski, a contributor to Women’s Running, shares that you should be sure that you do some of this stretching intentionally targeting your lower legs and ankles. The looser these joints and muscles are, the more flexible they’ll be to help prevent injuries.
Do Ankle-Strengthening Exercises
If you know that you have chronically weak ankles, like people do after they’ve sustained an ankle injury or two, you should then turn your attention to doing ankle-strengthening exercise to help build up your ankles once more.
Kisar S. Dhillon, a contributor to Active.com, shares that some of the best exercises to strengthen your ankles are ankle circles, calf raises, shin raises, and balancing on one leg. All of these exercises will help to build up the strength and tolerance in your ankles, which will help prevent them from getting hurt when you workout.
If you’re needing to take extra steps to protect your ankles when you workout, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you do just this.
