Hi Lisa,

I was wondering; who do you know if you are over doing it? Sometimes my ankles hurt and I was wondering if I have weak ankles. How would I go about strengthening them? I am also into a lot of sports such as field hockey and also cheerleading. Can you help me?

Thank you,

Dontay.

Dear Dontay,

This is a great question as a lot of dancers will experience some discomfort in their ankles at some point in time. If you are getting regular pain you need to look at both your technique and the stability of your ankle.  Often it is the most simple stability exercises that are the most effective. One of the exercises that I get most people to do is to start standing on one leg as often as you can during the day. Simply stand on one leg, bend the knee slightly, making sure that your arches are activated and that you big toe is still in contact with the ground. If this is easy try closing your eyes. By challenging your balance frequently during the day you will increase the responsiveness of the little muscles and ligaments around you feet and ankles and this can help to stabilize them.

Another exercise that is really nice is to practice your rises with a resistance band looped around the inside of your foot. This will pull the ankle into a slightly sickled position at the top of your rise if you relax into it, so your must work on keeping the alignment of the ankle perfect as you do these! Start off with double leg rises (with the band looped around just one ankle, and then progress to single leg rises with the band.

This really helps strengthen up the little muscles on the outside of the ankle. In the beginning you may like to tape your ankles or wear a gentle elastic brace during hockey and cheerleading as this can help to stabilize the ankle during these activities. This is not a long term solution as you really want to improve the ankle stability to avoid injury, though it is a good way to start if you are doing a lot of hours. If the pain continues, please see a sports physiotherapist as there may be another underlying issue with the mobility of your feet.  I hope this helps and look forward to hearing from you soon!

I hope this helps!

Kind Regards,

Lisa Howell.