Broken Ankle

thesoupdragon

Hi there am new to this I have been reading for a while but never posted. I took a fall on Saturday night on a christmas do and broke my ankle, I am itching to get out already. I have been working on my power and endurance since july with the intent on doing a few races this seasson, I just hope I am not back to square one as I have worked really hard to get here. My ankle its broken in 3 places and has two pins and a plate in does anyone know of any exercises I can be doing while I am in plaster and if there are any kind of supports on the market so I can be back on the the bike asap.

militiacore

Not something you can or should rush and expect to be out for a good 6 months or even longer. I assume you'll look to have plates removed long term but bare in mind this will put you out again but long term is the better solution.

All you can do is work on upper body strength initially and go by the guidance of medical staff as to when it may be safe to start rehab work on lower body. For cardio the only thing I can really suggest is to use a hand bike if you access to them at a gym.

butcher of bakersfield

Until you get it out of plaster you need to be resting it. Otherwise you'll just make the recovery period longer. For now it just needs to heal itself without any pressure. Best you can do is eat well. Or try some mad hippy shit like accupuncture if that's your thing (I've got a mate who swears by it and his total personal disregard means he's pretty much a walking injury).

Recovery times seem to vary a lot. You hear of people getting back to the grind within weeks, but that's one extreme end of the scale. I broke mine, wasn't even given a cast or anything, and originally thought I'd be back on board after a few weeks (I didn't actually learn that I'd broken it in 3 places until 9 months later). It took over 2 years until I no longer had any pain in it. I guess I done a lot of ligament damage.

Once out of the cast you need to be gentle and doing very little until it actually feels like it can take it. I mean when you reach the point where you can stretch it and you don't go ouch! A similar principle to yoga. It shouldn't hurt, but you will feel the stretch.

When you get to that point, there's loads you can do. Stretch out your feet while you're watching TV, spin them round in circles, spell out the alphabet (it eventually becomes a habit that's difficult to stop).

Stand on one foot. When that gets too easy, try shutting your eyes, or bouncing a ball off the wall. A good sized basketball's a decent purchase, as when you improve you can use it to squat on. Do that through an episode of eastenders and your ankles will have the best workout they've ever had. It does put a lot of pressure on them though, so not one to try in the early stages.

If you look, you'll find all kinds of excercises, but the key thing really, is patience. Get back on the bike too quickly and you'll soon find yourself back at square one.