Chronic Ankle Instability: What The research Actually Shows

Your ankle sprain is not just “bad luck” and it is definitely not a life sentence. We walk through what I found while researching chronic ankle instability in youth athletes, including the one test that created the clearest separation between athletes who trust their ankles and athletes who feel that constant “giving out” problem.

We start with the basics that parents, players, and coaches actually need: what chronic ankle instability means, why repeat ankle sprains happen, and how sprains differ by type and severity. Then we move into the practical screening side. I explain how I used the Cumberland Ankle Instability Tool (CAIT) to classify ankles, why dorsiflexion often shows up in the research, and how lateral ankle strength and muscle reaction timing can change how you land, cut, and decelerate.

Then we get very actionable. You will learn how to set a baseline at home with a wall test for ankle dorsiflexion, a single leg balance test with eyes closed, and a 30 cm lateral hop test you can time with your phone. I share real youth basketball benchmarks from my testing and how to retest every few weeks so rehab becomes a measurable plan instead of a guessing game. We also talk about smarter ankle rehab and injury prevention training: progressing from simple strength to dynamic stability, building hip control, and using plyometrics that match real basketball movement.

If this helps you, subscribe, share it with a teammate or coach, and leave a review so more players stop repeating the same ankle sprain cycle.

Transcript

Why Ankles Keep Getting Sprained

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We cannot prevent ankle injuries, but we can minimize the risk. In order to minimize the risk, we need to find your baseline. We look at your kind of feeling of the ankle, how you feel about it. We look at the ankle, we look at the hip, we look at the chums, we look at the range of motion. So we test many things. It's possible to change. It is possible to change. If you had three times, six times ankle sprains, maybe one that sprain will be the last. This podcast is for youth basketball players, their parents, and the coaches who develop them. In every episode, we cover topics that determine your success. We talk basketball, body, and mind. I am Stan, strength and conditioning coach and physiotherapist, working with youth basketball athletes around the world. If you are serious about your development and you want to succeed in basketball, this podcast is for you. Let's get it.

Thesis Goal And Who It Helps

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Basketball Body and Mind. In today's episode, I'm going to talk about my uh bachelor thesis degrees uh paper that I wrote and I gave it to the supervisor a couple of days ago, so it's very fresh. And I'll just present what I found and uh why I believe it is interesting because uh I was researching ankle sprains for the athletes who have chronic ankle instability and who didn't have or don't have. And if you don't know what chronic ankle instability is, so you're in the right place. So I was comparing those two groups, uh, their range of motion in the ankle, the strength of the lateral aspect of that lower leg of the calf, and also lateral aspect of the hip. And then we did different kinds of uh jumping assessments like lateral jumps and uh vertical jumps. So, how it's going to go uh today is I'm going to go through the thesis, and uh first of all, we will do the literature review, then I will present shortly how the research was done, um, like what kind of tests exactly we did, if you would like to do that by yourself, and then we

What Chronic Ankle Instability Means

SPEAKER_00 2:26

will finish with results. So, talking about now literature review, whatever I will say it is backed by science because when you write your thesis, you need to like each basically each sentence needs to be backed up by science. You cannot invent anything, whatever you think is true, you have to find supporting evidence to write that sentence. So that's why uh whatever I will say now, it's uh backed by science. So there are people who are telling, like scientific papers, who are showing that 73% of injuries were recurrent. So, what it means, like if you had an injury, like second injury, it's 73% likely that you already had that injury. But uh it was that scientific paper was done in 1994, and uh you can find another later studies that it they say it's only not 73, but it's only 10.5, and the newest one that I found was like 2022, so it was 14.5 percent. So if you had an ankle sprain, it's still more chances that you will have the ankle sprain uh on the same side, and uh that chronic angle stabil chronic ankle instability is uh that you feel that angle is giving away, like it's giving out. You for some reason you're not trusting the ankle, and that is like the one for viable that is um the most, let's say, related, because some people can have weakness in strength, some people can have uh short uh like a long contact time, and some people can feel the ankle is like slow and you measure and it is slow, but actually, one that kind of is uh relevant to most of the people is not strength, it's not range of motion, it's not the jumping ability, it's the feeling that it's giving out is the subjective subjective feeling that a person has, and most of them they had it. However, if you had multiple ankle sprains, you can still heal it sometimes, uh in some cases, uh, but in some cases you will develop that ankle chronic instability. And uh people who uh like had ankle sprain, around 40% develop that chronic ankle instability. And usually, usually uh people, those 60% are able to do a great rehab, great uh selecting great exercises, and uh in 12 months they get rid of that and and they don't feel any ankle instability. And uh when we are talking about the ankle instability, there can be uh ankle

Sprain Types And Severity Grades

SPEAKER_00 5:32

sprains. There can be three, uh maybe even four, but let's say three types of ankle sprains. It can be lateral ankle sprain, that is like 90% of the times where you step on someone's foot, and usually it's like 90%, as I said, that you will have a lateral ankle sprain, so outside of the ankle, it can be medial side of the ankle sprain, so the inside of the ankle joint is sprained, and also it can be a high ankle sprain. Uh, so uh I mean I remember I think Luka uh Doncic had that one like uh not long time ago, like a couple seasons ago, whenever you're listening, this but the high ankle sprain, and also ankle sprains uh does not just equal to ankle sprain. What I mean by that, there can be like three different grades. So grade number one, ankle sprain, grade number one is when you don't have like you have minimal swelling, maybe you have like a little bruise, very little. You are able to uh like do weight-bearing exercise, you're able to walk, uh, and it's only a sprain, nothing else is damaged. Uh, if you're talking about the grade number like grade level two, is that you will have like a let's say medium level of swelling, you will have a little bit of that swelling, however, the uh bruise will be still very local, it will not be big. It will be difficult to walk without crutches for you. You will be able to take that step, but it will be difficult for you to do because we already have in grade two a slight tear, like a partly tear, part partial tear of the ligament. So that's why it is uh difficult to walk. And a grade number two, level two, is that you have lots of swelling, and uh the uh the the bruise is uh not only local, it's like it's spread, it's big, and uh it's impossible for you to walk without the significant pain, and you have fully torn ligament. It can be one, it can be two, it can be one uh fully torn, and then another ligament is grade two, like a partly torn. Uh, it can be different kind of uh combinations. But uh as I said, 90% is those lateral um sprains, and around 60%, so 58.5 percent, uh basketball players are ever so more than a half ever have um uh let's say gotten let's they have um gotten or occurred the ankle sprain for them, and 15% had not one but multiple ankle sprains, so like it's quite a bit, I would say 15%. Uh thinking how many basketball players are playing um basketball, it's uh a

Mechanical Vs Functional Instability Tests

SPEAKER_00 8:51

lot. And uh when we are talking about that chronic ankle instability, it can be mechanical and it can be functional. So mechanical ankle instability, something that you are uh born with, that maybe you have like a let's call it bigger gaps between your ankle bones, and that's why you have like a bigger instability, and it's harder for you to stabilize the ankle. Um you can define that mechanical ankle instability by uh images, or you can do some manual techniques to check what is the movement of the uh ankle bones, and uh it can be also functional uh ankle instability. So, as it says the name, so it's based on the function. So we have certain criteria that I will tell later uh that you have to get. If you don't have it, we assume that the person has uh ankle instability. It does not mean that the person really has something like inside of his body uh instable, but based on the test that we do, whether it's jump, whether it's strength, uh, we assume that the person has ankle instability. So we we test function and we based on that we uh decide. Another way to decide whether you have an chronic ankle instability or not, is just to do simple questionnaires. And I was using Cumberland Ankle Instability Tool, uh C I A I T. So you can find that, and if you will score 25 or less points, you based on the science, you have you are treated as a person who has chronic ankle instability. There are different instruments like ankle instability instrument, uh, then there is uh identification of functional ankle instability and so on. There's like more. But uh, if you want to test yourself, just Google Cumberland Ankle Instability Tool, and you can do that online. So, based on the result, you will decide whether you have that chronic ankle instability or not.

Dorsiflexion And Strength What Research Shows

SPEAKER_00 11:12

So, let's talk. That's the first test that I did, but let's talk if you have either more or less range of motion in the ankle or how ankle range of motion affects the chronic ankle instability. And most of the science shows that if you have degreased, okay, not this way, it's a vice versa. So, person who has chronic ankle instability, usually they have a lesser degree of ankle dorsiflexion. Dorsiflexion, think about I believe everyone has done this test where you are kind of in a half-kneeling position, uh, and you are pushing your knee forward, and you see how far you can bring your big toe away from the wall without lifting your heel. So that would be the like you can see, uh you can Google that uh excess that assessment, ankle dorsiflexion, let's say weight-bearing lunge position, something like this, and you will see it can be a standing variation or half-kneeling, uh half-kneeling position. And spoiler alert, you are looking for 12 centimeters or five inches away from the wall, or approximately 39.5 um degrees. That is for actually for the not the ankle function, but to protect the knees, we are looking for 39.5 or 37.5, but something along these lines. Anyway, so what they uh what they found is that usually people who with chronic ankle instability will have less range of motion in the ankle. And uh it's not always the case, because there was some there were some articles saying that that they did not find difference between uh people who had ankle instability and those who didn't have. And the authors they were suggesting that if you do a great rehab, range of motion will not be an issue because you will regain the range of motion that you need or that you had before, and you are comparing your right and left sides, or maybe you have uh pre-measurements that you did before the injury, and the people are able to come back if they are doing a great rehab, if they then doing the um training sessions and uh within uh within 12 months, they are able to get their range of motion back. But if we if we need to summarize, usually those who are having less range of motion, they are also more likely to be to be to have chronic ankle instability. If we are talking about the muscle strength, and uh now it's important for to for me to mention it's called like perineal muscles, so they are sitting on the lateral side, like outside of the lower leg of the calf, and uh it is thought that if you had ankle sprain, lateral, usually 90%, remember, if you had ankle sprain, those muscles are over let's say over no ligaments are overstretched and the muscles are weaker. So people who have ankle uh chronic ankle instability, they will have those muscles weaker. And there are plenty of uh articles showing that they had weaker muscles, those muscles, but it's not only the ankle that it's weaker, it's all also the lateral uh side of the hip or the outside of the hip is also weaker, and it is connected to connected to the fascial lines, to the same how to say simply that everything is connected connected in our body, and uh if our uh if we had an ankle sprain, it will affect the hip also, not only the foot, not only the angle, not only the uh those perineal muscles, but also the hip. So there are people showing that uh hip uh lateral aspect is weaker, but people can say I found articles saying that also external rotation is weaker of the hip and hip extension is weaker for those people who have chronic ankle instability. Important to mention if we are talking about the strength, that is not only the strength, but is also the speed of the of those muscles, or more precisely, I would say that the speed to contract and the speed to stabilize the ankle. Speed to contract meaning when you are landing, let's say on that chronically uh instable ankle, you're landing. It will take longer time for you to catch the balance because probably the ankle reacted slower or later, and that's why it takes longer for you to react. So before you land, your muscles in around the ankle, they need to contract, or like a it's called a co-contraction. So they need to contract and get ready for that hit for that um load that you are going to land, and uh it contracts and then you stabilize. And those who have chronic ankle instability, it seems that it is contracting um later and it is taking longer time to stabilize the ankle. So if you are uh actually, let's

Jump Assessments And Study Setup

SPEAKER_00 17:05

leave this at the end. I don't want to uh say what you need to do. Let's wait till the end. Uh yes. So next thing that we uh that I assessed is that we were looking at the reactive strength. So now I'm talking about the jumping ability. So we did vertical jumps single leg, and we also do did lateral jumps single leg. Vertical jumps, uh idea behind is, as I just said, that those muscles, those uh ankles are slower. So I thought that hey, maybe the contact time when they are doing four jumps in a row, the contact time for those who have ankle instability will be longer because it takes longer for them to to kind of stabilize the ankle and then jump up again. So I could not find the article saying that. So I thought, let me test that. Okay, so that's what I did. Uh, and then talking about the lateral uh jumps, so the most often test done is um you have like a 30 centimeters uh gap, and you're standing on one side of that 30 centimeters, and standing on that one leg, you have to jump to the other side of that 30 centimeters, and you that space, 30 centimeter space, you have to jump as fast as you can 20 times. So down to one side is one, back is two, then three, jumping again four, and so on. So you have to jump that 30 uh centimeters gap for 20 times and record the time. Some article says that you have to complete 15.4 seconds. Others are saying that you have to complete in 12.8 seconds, and uh even though that 15.5 15.4 uh seconds is much newer, is just five years old, and these are the recommendations, I disagree because when I tested the youth athletes, they were almost twice as fast. Like those who had ankle instability, I'm like now a little bit going in front, but um those who had ankle instability, they were much faster than this. So I am more inclined to select 12.8, even though it's like more than 10 years old, they are the article, but I'm more like that. So if you are going to do that, aim for 12.8 seconds. So how everything was executed in the research that I did uh was that I had 23 athletes, young athletes, average age was uh 15 years old, and uh they it was 15 uh boys and eight girls, and uh I tested them in their training session, in their strength and conditioning session, and if any of them uh are listening, I want to say thank you for participating. Uh thank you for uh being part of my physiotherapy degree. But let's continue. So every each of them started with that assessment, as I said, Cumberland um Cumberland Ankle Instability Tool. So they had to answer nine questions for each ankle because maybe one ankle isn't stable, but the other one it feels completely fine. So I was comparing, I was checking also left and right, but uh for just for my own interest. But in my thesis, I was just comparing one angle, the worst angle. So after that, they were I assessed their hypermobility. Uh, I will not talk too much if you want to look its beton scale that I was using, and I was checking whether they had increased mobility, let's say, like in nature, because uh some of you uh by genetics got more range of motion, so I wanted to be sure that uh I take into account your ankle, let's say, range of motion. I would take into account how much you have uh or how much likely you have that range of motion because of that genetics. So then I tested each of them ankle dorsiflexion, as I said, half kneeling position, pushing your knee forward, measuring the centimeters away from the wall. The next One was ankle eversion. So the ankle eversion is the lateral aspect tray uh testing the lateral aspect of the ankle and how strong they were, they were pushing as hard as they can uh with that device digital digital uh dynamometer that I received. It's called muscle meter. If you are looking, actually, it's a great one. I liked it. Very simple to use. They have like measures app. Uh, if you are a coach and looking for something easy and uh kind of to carry with you and easy to use, uh definitely check muscle meter muscle meter uh device, let's say. So I was using that to test the ankle, and I was using that to test their hip. So ankle was tested in seated position, and hip was tested in standing position, and then each of them did those jumps. So they were doing single leg four jumps vertically and for each leg, and then they also were doing single leg lateral jumps for 20 seconds. So this is the difference that I thought I will include in my research. So, in general, the the the science says that you have to do just 20 jumps and count the time. So I did that, but also I did 20 seconds because I thought ankles usually we not usually not always, but usually we have ankle sprains in when we are fatigued. And uh it is showed, and I'm talking in this uh article also, it is showed that when you are fatigued, the reaction of the muscle or like its contraction is slower, it takes longer to react and slower to contract. So that's why I thought I will do not only 20 jumps, but I will do also 20 seconds. Because I want to see maybe somebody has very good 20 jumps and then they slow down and they barely jump because they are fatigued. So that's why that's why I decided to include two uh types of lateral jumps assessments, even though in reviewing all the data that I could find, uh people with ankle instability and those long duration or fatigue jumps, I found just one article. If you have more, definitely share. I would be curious to compare those results. So let's go to the most important part uh that everyone I hope is waiting for, and it's the results.

The Lateral Jump Results That Matter

SPEAKER_00 24:49

So after everything reviewed, I was at the same time surprised and not surprised, not surprised because I did the I believe good literature review, and uh I could expect what I will see, but I was surprised that I did not find some results. Maybe it's the way uh I executed uh um let's say this uh research, maybe it's the way that I had only 23 subjects, uh maybe I needed more and I would have found more results. But after reviewing everything, the most important thing that I found was those lateral jumps. Lateral jumps, how fast you can do 20 jumps over 30 centimeters gap. So that is the number one. If you do not take anything from this um episode, take that. So draw a line, 30 centimeters, put camera in front of you, and then you have to jump over that 30 centimeters line. If you step, if you jump on the line, you touch the line. Do not count that rep. It doesn't count. So if you jump, let's say one, two, three, four, and on the fifth jump, you kind of touch the line or you step on the line, it's four, it's not five. Then you jump back again, and then you can say five, then you jump again, six, seven. You jumped on the line again, it's again seven, it's not eight. So do that for one angle, record the time, like you can check your time. And if you're using iPhone, I don't know how it's an Android, but if you want to be very accurate and have milliseconds, you need to click edit the video, and then you will see uh those milliseconds because when you are editing, when you are just watching, you will see just seconds. But if you want to be precise, you can whether it's like 9.5 seconds or 9.7 seconds or um 9.3 seconds, you can click edit video, and the there you will see and count how fast, how fast did you do 20 jumps? So the group that I tested and they had no ankle instability, in average, they were doing 8.3 seconds. Remember, the first uh the first article was suggesting 15.3 seconds, and the second one that I mentioned was 12.8. Okay, and my group did 8.3, and the worst result, the worst result for someone who did not have um ankle instability, chronic ankle instability was 9.5. So now if we look at those who had ankle, chronic ankle instability, and it was done by the uh Cumberland Ankle Instability Tool. So they answered those questions, and based on the result, I split them into the group. Those who had chronic ankle instability, they were in average 10.3. So it's like two seconds slower in average. And the worst result was 14 seconds. So the worst result was not, it was still kind of better than that 15. whatever it was, six or whatever. So that's why I don't think that it is a great um result result uh from that, even though in that article it was uh football players, like are you football players? But uh football is very different from the passable. Maybe that's why results were different. And the group now, like if I would talk, also it was a significant result. The second one was the total amount of jumps in 20 seconds. So the person did the those who had no ankle chronic ankle instability, they did an average 46 jumps, like almost 47 jumps in 20 seconds, and those with ankle instability did 38. So that is like eight to nine jumps difference in 20 seconds. It was also significant difference between sides. But interesting that I found some articles and uh with those lateral uh jumps, I found that uh people were able to jump in, also like me, not in 12 seconds, but in 8.7 seconds. So it's not only my athletes that I tested were so great and had great results, but also there are um articles that I found uh that they're jumping similar time. Even those who had ankle chronic ankle instability, they were like nine seconds. So what I want to say from this is like it's not one test. In this case, I found the difference, significant difference between two groups. But maybe you will not have. Maybe you will not have this, maybe you will have other tests, or maybe none of these would show, but you would still have that chronic ankle instability and you would still turn or twist that uh ankle. But we will talk about that later, what you could do. So, next one that I found it was almost significant difference between sides was the lateral strength of the ankle, so the outside strength of your calf. So that was almost uh significant. That's what we are looking in uh uh science, but uh that is pretty clear that uh based on the science literature review, that is pretty clear that we need to work on that. And not only strength. I was able to measure just strength with the muscle meter, but it's not only strength that matters. You need to work on the, as I said, stability, dynamic stability, time to stabilization. You need to work on the co-contraction of the ankle. It's super important. Very important. You cannot treat, you cannot sit down on the floor and just do ankle exercises and expect that your ankle, like those with the bands, you know, like where you're seated and you are just like moving your ankle right to left, and that's it. You cannot expect that that exercise will yield to the results that would be no ankle sprains. I mean, it's impossible, but at first, maybe when you are rehabbing after the ankle sprain, it's a great exercise. But later you need something more difficult. More difficult. Maybe what you could do instead is just drop the cable as low as you can in the weight room, add that uh band, not band, like a loop, that uh cable around your ankle, and just do with the weights and increase that strength like 5, 10, 20 kilos. And about the other test, none of the tests matter that much, nothing was significant

What Did Not Show Up

SPEAKER_00 32:27

for the other assessments, like a lateral hip assessments, the dorsiflexion assessment, vertical jump assessment. This is what I was surprised that contact time was not significant. And yes, in average, everything was worse in the group with ankle, chronic ankle instability. However, I believe the difference in averages uh can be explained by the differences in the gender between the groups. So I believe that that was a factor influencing. So let's talk now the last

Build Your Baseline At Home

SPEAKER_00 33:07

part. Let's talk now about what to do if you uh want to rehab and if you want to have no ankle or minimize the risk of ankle spraint, or that you would not have that feeling of ankle instability. So, first of all, we need to set the baseline. And how I would do that, I would do right now. I would just would Google Cumberland Ankle instability tool, and I would just score, see what it would be the score for both of my ankles for my right and for my left. What number would I get? Because maybe you will reach 20 in one and 25 in the other. So that will be our baseline. Then we need to like one baseline, then we need to measure the range of motion. Do you like this is the very first thing? Do you have enough of range of motion? I already mentioned at the beginning that we for dorsiflexion we are looking for 12 centimeters. Like that would be great. Not all basketball players have it, but maybe you will have six, maybe you will have eight, maybe you'll have two. I have seen people who have zero, meaning like they barely can touch the wall, or maybe they cannot. Um, so that's how you measure, and also I did not include in this article in my research, but I would also look at the plant reflection. So get on your knees, extend your foot, like feet, both of your feet, and uh try to sit down, like sink down with your hips. Are you able to sit down fully with your ankles fully extended so that you cannot put your uh fingers under your ankles? If yes, I would say most likely you have enough of plant reflection. So this is simple assessment that you could do at home. After that, we would need to test, but it's difficult to test the ankle uh ankle single uh single leg strength of your ankle e-version. But one article showed that what you could do instead, you could stand on a single leg, eyes closed more than 28 seconds. So 28 is a minimum. So you're standing on one leg, eyes closed, 28 seconds. If you can stand without uh losing the balance, that is considered as you have an okay, let's say, baseline. Like you are at the minimum that we want to see. But uh, I like I do this exercise with my athletes, and I want to see two minutes, eyes closed. This is the standard. If you can do two minutes, you're good. Two minutes, eyes closed. Uh, don't start with two minutes, start with maybe 30 seconds, in a week progress to 60, then progress to 90, and then in four weeks, you will be in two minutes because in like two minutes your ankle will be burning, just standing on that one leg. So that's what you can do for the lateral aspect of the uh of the ankle to set the baseline, and uh for the hip, it's simple. Like uh there are three levels, and in each level you want to be able to do uh 45, 30, 15. Uh this these are the repetitions. So level one is you are laying on your side with your like uh if you're watching the video, so you can see that I'm having my hand, I'm laying, let's say, on my right side. So my right hand is under my uh like below my head, and I'm just laying straight uh on my on my right side, and then I'm lifting my left head left leg up. I want to be able to do 45 repetitions. I might be feeling good burning sensation in my uh lateral side of the hip, but I'm I aim to do 45 repetitions and 45 repetitions with 45 degrees of the lift, your leg. If you are able to do that, so then we want to go to the level two, which is half kneeling side plank. So you get to the side plank position. Again, we are on the right side, so uh right knee is down, right elbow is down, your body is straight, but the top leg, which is left, it's extended. And now I want to see 30 repetitions that you are lifting your leg up, left leg, up and down, up, down. I want to see 30. If you can do that, that's the minimum. You are doing great. And the level three is you get to the regular side plank position, just regular side plank again, right side, you are on the right elbow and right foot, and then you're lifting the left leg up. The minimum is 15. If you can get to 30, that's ninja, that's ninja level, elite level. So 15 is okay. So if you can get to 15 repetitions, lifting your leg up, straight up, like to the side, perfect. Do that. I still want to see that 45 degree. Okay, it will look maybe more like 30 because you're already in decline position, but I want to see 45% between your 45 degrees between your uh hips or your legs, let's say. So these would be the assessments that you could do for the uh strength, and then the uh jumps. Jumps are left. So for jumping, uh you can ignore that if you don't have a platform, you can ignore the vertical jumps because it's much more difficult, but you can do just the lateral jumps. It's super simple. Measure 30 centimeters, draw a line, another line, two lines 30 centimeters apart, you put a phone in front of you and you just record. You do 20 jumps down and back, rest one minute, again, another ankle, rest one minute, second time, and second time the other angle, and uh take the best result. Remember, your goal is to be able to do in 12.8, but in my opinion, the standard should be lower. If you are an elite athlete, you should be based on this, you should be below nine if you're youth, if you are uh professional, probably you will be around eight or less, in my opinion. And remember, count those kind of mistakes. Because if you did a mistake, you jumped on the line, that doesn't count. Okay, so now all of us we have done this assessment, so now we know the standards that you want to do, like ankle dorsiflexion, you want to be 12 centimeters. Um uh for the ankle e-version, those like lateral aspects, you want to be able to stand for 30 seconds, or stand standards are uh stand standard. Yes, that's nice. I need to uh do something with this standard. Uh so for stand standards, you want to do two minutes. Then we have hip, it's clear, then we have uh single leg lateral jumps, it's clear. So we set the baseline, and then every two weeks, three weeks, I would say every three weeks, you test again and you see how it changes. Don't forget to take that questionnaire also, because if you remember, at the very very beginning, I said that the it might be that all the tests will be pretty good for you. You will be kind of clearing the baselines and you will be doing like a basic um like levels and you will be doing everything well, but based on the questionnaire, you're not there yet. So then we know we need to train. So now,

Training Plan For Ankles And Hips

SPEAKER_00 41:34

training, it's uh like dorseflexion, you know the exercises. You can just Google um ankle dorsiflexion exercises. If you don't know what to do, always text me on Instagram, text me on uh Facebook, wherever. Just find me on Balticmove.net, text me, I will send you the exercises for the ankle uh stretching. Then for the e-version strength, remember those banded exercises are great. So eversion banded exercises. Uh so you can uh do those, you can do with the cables, you can do single leg balance, you can do single leg balance uh with heels slightly elevated, so not touching the floor, you can do jumps and uh like a vertical jump and land on one leg, you can jump on the unstable surface. Uh that would be another one. So plenty of exercises that you could do for the ankle for the hip, anything that is standing on one leg will be working, that lateral aspect of the hip. So that's a simple way for you to think. If you stand on two legs, probably it will not be working. If you stand on one leg, it will be working, but any uh lateral movements of the hip will be working. You can put a band around your knees and do uh like a hip abduction, maybe you do a hip lift with a band, maybe uh you just do a single leg squat, maybe you do uh split stance squat, uh like plenty, like a step up. It can also be working on the hip. It will not be directly working on that lateral aspect, but remember it's not only the lateral aspect that was weaker, it was external rotation, it was hip extension also weaker for those who have ankle instability. So uh we need to work on the hips in general. And uh last is the plyometrics. So here, okay, we will be testing that lateral jumps, but if we talk about training, we need to think about different movements because uh like different exercises, because in basketball, no movement is the same. You need to do different jumps. Like uh you jump right, right, left, for example, or left, left, right. You jump diagonally, you jump forward, you jump sideways, you jump and turn, you jump sideways, jump up, jump back. You jump a couple of times, stick the landing, and so on. Like jump on the on the little box, jump off the box, jump to the side, jump and turn. Okay, so don't think too much, but expose your ankle to uh to different those movements. And very, very important, if you will find when doing those jumps, if you will find some movement or some type of jump that your it crossed your mind that hey, I'm like I might not be stable, I might not be stable in this type of jump. So pay attention to that because that's exactly what you need to train. But instead of doing like a big jump or fast jump, you make it easier, make a smaller jump or a slower jump, and over the time just work your way up to the maximum intensity of that type of jump. Okay, because if you found something that you felt or you uh kind of thought that it's unstable, remember, ankle, like the number one thing is that feeling that ankle is giving away, is giving out. So that's why if you will catch that feeling, you need to train that because this is what I believe will yield the best results for you. So this was my um article. Uh, I mean, it is in Lithuanian, I have only abstract and English. If somebody is interested in reading that, just let me know. I will be happy to share. Um, maybe I will do it after I graduated. So it will take a couple of weeks. So, yes. If you have any questions, always I'm happy to answer. Ask me anytime. Uh, to summarize everything in three key takeaways.

Three Takeaways And Share Request

SPEAKER_00 46:20

So, ankle, like we cannot prevent ankle injuries, but we can minimize the risk. Number two is in order to minimize the risk, we need to find your baseline and see the progress. And when we are treating the ankle, we look at the different aspects. We look at your kind of feeling of the ankle, how you feel about it. Uh, we look at the ankle, we look at the hip, we look at the chumps, we look at the range of motion. So we test many things. And number three is it's possible to change. It is possible to change. If you had three times, six times ankle sprains, maybe one that sprain will be the last, meaning not that you will quit playing basketball, but maybe you will not have anymore. You just need to take some actions, find something that you need to work on. As I said in number two, do those baseline measurements. Maybe you don't need to stretch anymore. Maybe you don't need to work on your ankle anymore, maybe you need to work on their hips. Maybe that's why your ankles are getting um like not torn, like you're getting sprains in the ankles. Because you're not draining your hips. Maybe someone else is because they don't have range of motion in the ankle, and then every little degree of the range of motion that you have is like a sprain. I don't know, but you could test yourself. So, thank you for listening. Uh, thank you. I hope that you found something useful from this um episode. And uh, as always, if you could please share it with someone, share it with a coach, share it with someone who would need to hear, share it with a friend who had multiple ankle sprains, and they need to hear that. And uh, I know that this episode can, and you know that this episode can uh help them if they take some actions. So, thank you for listening. Share this episode, but for now, keep training basketball, body, and mind.